Parents with mental illness pose higher risk to children

Children of parents suffering from mental illness have a higher risk of suffering physical abuse than other children, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. gettyimagesbank

By Bahk Eun-ji

When a woman found a nine-year-old girl at around 6:20 p.m. on the street in Changnyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, May 29, the girl had severe wounds such as bruises around her eyes and blisters on her fingers. Some of her fingernails were missing, and there were cuts on her head.

It was also reported that the girl was wearing thin pajamas and large slippers that adults would wear. The woman immediately contacted the police when the girl showed her burned hand to the woman, saying “My father put my hands on a frying pan to remove my fingerprints so that police cannot bring me back when I run away from home.”

“It was because my daughter didn't listen to me,” the stepfather said during a police investigation, admitting to some of the abuse, but denying habitual violence.

The girl has been hospitalized and treated at a hospital in the province and is under the protection of a child shelter.

It was later revealed that the girl's mother had been receiving treatment for schizophrenia at a neuropsychiatry clinic since 2016, but had stopped taking her medication for the past year.

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe mental disorder in which hallucinations, delusions, and behavioral abnormalities occur. It affects the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality, and relates to others. Patients may experience fear and paranoia, and can appear to have lost touch with reality. While the disease can't be cured it can be controlled with proper treatment.

Research findings announced by the College of Pharmacy at Yeungnam University noted that schizophrenia is known to be the most extreme of all mental illnesses and often leads to serious obstacles and risks in daily life. It is estimated that 0.3 to 0.7 percent of the world's population is affected by schizophrenia. According to statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO), the lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia is generally reported to affect around 1 percent of the world's population.

Other data from Statistics Korea indicated that the lifetime prevalence rate of schizophrenia in both men and women in Korea stood at around 0.5 percent in 2016.

Impact on children

According to a study published by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, parental mental illness is associated with an increased risk of injury among children up to 17 years of age with risks peaking during the first year of life. The findings highlight the need for parents with mental illness to receive extra support around child injury prevention measures as well as early treatment of mental illness among expecting parents.

Their findings are based on 1,542,000 children born in Sweden between 1996 and 2011 to 893,334 mothers and 873,935 fathers.

"Our results show there is a need for increased support to parents with mental illness, especially during the first year of life," said Alicia Nevriana, PhD student at the Department of Global Public Health and the study's corresponding author.

Stopping treatment causes symptoms to come back

Medical experts say it was possible to fully predict the nine-year-old's case, considering the typical symptoms of schizophrenia, with a little attention paid by people surrounding her such as teachers, neighbors, doctors and public officers.

“Patients with schizophrenia tend not to seek help from people around them and usually don't want to get treatment voluntarily,” said Koh Young-hoon, a professor of psychiatry at Korea University Ansan Hospital.

“Most patients stop treatment due to moving or financial difficulties, and those only worsen the disease,” he said.

According to the Changnyeong Police Station, the family of the nine-year-old had lived in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, before moving to Changnyeong in January this year. The biological mother had been suffering from schizophrenia, but she stopped treatment last year and her symptoms became more severe. Police said that the mother started to abuse her daughter when they moved to Changnyeong.

Despite the tendency of violence in patients with schizophrenia, medical experts say the symptoms can be improved through treatment. Koh said the lack of understanding of schizophrenia and the indifference of people around them are the most serious causes of worsening symptoms.

“Schizophrenic patients often stop treatment thinking they don't have mental problems. A major difference between schizophrenia and other mental illnesses is that schizophrenia patients have been found to have a higher overall mortality rate, two to three times as high as the general population, particularly when untreated.” he said.

At least two years of treatment are generally recommended after the first onset, and long-term maintenance is needed for at least five years if schizophrenic episodes recur.

The expert also explained that prejudice toward the schizophrenic person from people around them makes it difficult to detect the illness early and get proper treatment.

“It is not right to think that patients with the disease are very different from us or are strange people,” said Ahn Seok-kyun, a professor of psychiatry at Severance Hospital.

The pace of improvement in treatment varies from patient to patient, but with proper treatment, one-third could recover to near-daily levels, Ahn said. In addition to medication, rehabilitation treatment such as cognitive behavioral therapy, psychotherapy, and occupational therapy are performed at the same time.

“In order to treat schizophrenia, understanding from family and people around the patient is the most important thing,” he said.

“At first glance, patients seem to have lost their personality, but they have a lot of pain and frustration inside, so people around them need to understand this well and treat them with dedicated affection to improve their symptoms.”