Family Environment, Coping and Parent-Child Relationship among Families Raising Children with and without Bipolar Disorder: A Comparative Study

Childhood bipolar disorder, also known as pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD), is a form of mood disorder that occurs in children. The significant functional impairments and considerable difficulties associated with PBD heavy demands are often placed on the resources of parents, which can lead to decreased quality of family functioning and difficult parent-child relationships. Difficulties in family function and parent-child relationships have also in other childhood psychiatric disorder including depression and schizophrenia. The aim of the paper is to know the family environment, coping and parent-child relationship among families raising children with bipolar disorder in comparison to normal group. The sample size consists 60 children‘s and their parents, among which 30 children with bipolar disorder and the remaining 30 from normal children‘s (non bipolar) with age and sex matched normal controls through purposive sampling method. The first category of the samples was collected from out-patient department of Erna Hoch Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP), Ranchi. The second category (normal controls) of the samples consist non bipolar children‘s and their parents who resides in the surrounding areas of the hospital. The family environment and coping scale were administered with parents and the parent child relationship was assessed from the children‘s. There is higher level of behavioral problems found in children‘s with Bipolar Affective Disorder compared to normal control group. Both internalizing and externalizing problems are found in patient group. Statistically significant associations and differences are found among the parents of children with and without bipolar disorder. The study emphasizes the vulnerability of the families raising children with mental illnesses.