ARCH Lab student, Megan Dol, who recently defended her PhD thesis, has published a paper in Child Psychiatry and Human Development titled “Associations Between Family Factors and Mental Health Service Use Among Children with Physical Illness: The Mediating Role of Child Psychopathology Trajectories.” The paper uses data from the MY LIFE Study.
This research explores whether child psychopathology trajectories mediate the relationship between parent psychological distress/family functioning and mental health service use (MHSU) in children with chronic physical illness (CPI).
Parent psychological distress was measured using a composite score derived from the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale. Family functioning was assessed with the McMaster Family Assessment Device.
The study found a significant indirect effect of parent psychological distress on healthcare professional contact through child psychopathology. This suggests that addressing parent mental health could help reduce child psychopathology, potentially lowering MHSU in children with CPI. These findings highlight the importance of developing family-centered interventions that support the mental health of both children with CPI and their parents.
