Parental Physical Illnesses and Their Association with Subsequent Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms in Children.

Parental physical illnesses can be stressful for children. We estimated the prevalence of children who experience parental physical illnesses, and whether parental physical illnesses during childhood were associated with behavioral problems in adolescence. Data on children from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 was collected through questionnaires at ages 8 and 16 (n = 7037). Data on parental illness diagnosed during this study period was obtained from health registers. We investigated the association between parental physical illness (based on the International Classification of Diseases) and children's behavioral problems at age 16 (measured by the Youth Self-Report questionnaire). During the study period, 3887 (55.2%) children had a parent with at least one physical illness. Associations were found between parental physical illness and children's behavioral problems, with most associations found between maternal illness and males' externalizing problems, and females' internalizing problems. After adjusting for child behavioral problems at age 8, parental psychiatric illness and socioeconomic status, and multiple testing correction, only associations between parental physical illness and male behavioral problems were significant. Interestingly, parental illness was associated with lower problems. A notable proportion of children experience parental physical illnesses. Although mixed, our findings suggest that the impact of parental physical illness on children's behavioral problems is complex, and that the experience of parental illness may lead to resilience in males. This study emphasizes that children's needs should be taken into account when treating a parent with physical illness. Highlights: Parental physical illnesses, diagnosed in specialized inpatient or outpatient care, are present for a substantial proportion of the population. Parental physical illnesses have an effect on children's mental health. However, this impact is complex with some negative and some positive effects on children. Male children may cope better than expected with some parental illnesses, and experiencing parental illness may lead to resilience among some male children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]