Understanding and Helping Families: Parents with Psychosis - Version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
STAGE 1: Investigating attributions and expressed emotion in parents with and without psychosis STAGE 2: Investigating the use of a self-directed parenting programme with parents experiencing psychosis
IRAS ID
179611
Contact name
Lauren Stockton
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 1 months, 2 days
Research summary
Parenting can evoke powerful emotional responses. Those experiencing serious mental health problems, such as psychosis (e.g., seeing or hearing things others do not), have recounted a life-long struggle managing their illness and being a parent. The majority of individuals with psychosis parent children at similar rates as the general population. In the UK it is estimated that up to 50% those involved with services have dependent children. This means that approximately 17,000 children in the UK have a parent who has psychotic experiences. Up to 50% of these parents lose custody of their children. The ongoing stress of parenting can exacerbate a pre-existing illness, particularly if there is limited applicable or accessible support or interventions that offer potential help.
Research has shown that those experiencing such problems have more stress, family breakdown, and children with behavioural and emotional problems. Understanding how parents’ behaviour, thinking and functioning interact with the family environment, in the form of their attributions and expressed emotions, could help us improve well-being and parent-child relationships.
This research aims to help us get a better understanding of dysfunctional parenting practices and the role of parental mental illness, to help develop approaches that can help meet the needs of these parents. The first phase involves the attributions and emotional responses parents display, as they can act as a beneficial or burdening feature of parenting practices and self-efficacy. The theoretical underpinnings of expressed emotion and parental attributions will help identify potential behaviour change mechanisms. This identification could help develop and tailor the parenting intervention for parents experiencing psychosis. The second phase involves the implementation of an established self-directed 10 week parenting intervention. This may help us to see what works for these parents and what needs to be improved or modified to support paths of recovery.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NW/0532
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion