A LIMERICK-based study has found that over 80 per cent of parents claimed raising children was “sometimes or always more difficult because of their mental health challenges”.
The Department of Psychology at Mary Immaculate College (MIC) launched the findings of the new ‘Building Connections: The experience of parenting while living with mental health challenge’ report in partnership with the HSE, Tusla, and Clarecare.
Over 200 parents from around Ireland completed an anonymous online survey for the report about living with mental health challenges.
The study aimed to find out more about the difficulties parents face and the supports and barriers they face.
Among the findings, 67 per cent of parents said they had taken medication at some stage for their mental health, but 54 per cent explained their role as a parent was not included in discussions around their medication.
66 per cent of parents surveyed said they had more than one mental health challenge, while 46 per cent said they did not know where to access parenting supports.
One parent said they “felt so bad because I thought, as a parent, I should have been the stable person, the person with answers, the person who could control their emotions”.
“I’ll never forget the look on my daughter’s face on the day I broke down,” they said.
Commenting on the findings, Professor Niamh Stack, head of the Department of Psychology at MIC, and one of the researchers involved in the project said that “we know that many parents experience mental health challenges, but these findings show that a lot of parents feel alone and unsupported in the difficulties they face”.
“Parents also expressed the sense of stigma and fear they feel around sharing their mental health challenges,” Professor Stack noted.
Other MIC researchers involved in the project included Dr Suzanne Egan and Dr Clare Hoyne.
Previous Irish research suggests that around 23 per cent of families have at least one parent who has experienced a mental health disorder, with adults in Ireland having one of the highest incidences of mental health illness across Europe.
