Parental loss in childhood: relationship to adult psychiatric impairment and contact with psychiatric services
C. Tennant, A. Smith, P. Bebbington and J. Hurry
Both parental death in childhood and parent-child separations (from causes
other than death) were assessed in a community survey of psychiatric
disorder and in an equivalent sample of psychiatric outpatients from the
same community. Symptomatic disorder (psychiatric caseness) and psychiatric
illness behavior (patient status) were examined. Symptomatic disorder was
defined by comparing community (unreferred) cases with noncases. Illness
behavior was specified by comparing the psychiatric outpatients with the
community cases. Parental death in childhood bore no relation to either
symptomatic disorder in the community sample (psychiatric caseness) or to
psychiatric illness behavior (patient status) in adult life. Parent-child
separations similarly had no relation to adult symptomatic disorder but
were significantly associated with psychiatric illness behavior.
