The longitudinal relationship between child emotional disorder and parental mental health in the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health surveys 1999 and 2004

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordBackground: Research suggests parental psychopathology has an adverse effect on child mental health. However, due to the interactional nature of parent-child relationships and with a high rate of emotional disorders reported in school-age children, it is important to know whether the effect is reciprocal. Methods: We explored the longitudinal relationship between child and parent mental health in the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Surveys (N=7,100 child-parent dyads) and their threeyear follow-ups. The Development and Well-Being Assessment with DSM-IV diagnostic criteria was used to measure child psychiatric diagnoses, while parental mental health was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression was used to explore the longitudinal association between child emotional disorder and parent mental health. Results: Parents of children who had an emotional disorder at baseline were more likely to have poor mental health three years later compared with parents whose children had no psychiatric diagnosis (33.3% versus 16.7%; crude odds ratio=2.52; adjusted odds ratio=2.19, 95% CI=1.58 to 3.05, p