ReviewEuropean child & adolescent psychiatry2024
The impact of paternal mental illness on child development: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Review in European child & adolescent psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- The perceived influence of fathers' and non-gestational parents' experiences of postnatal depression on their relationship with their child and partner: a systematic review of qualitative studies and meta-synthesis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Paternal perinatal mental health and early child development: An outcome-wide analysis.Infant mental health journal · 2026Article
- Early Life Stress Effects on Children's Biology, Behavior, and Health: Evidence, Mediators, Moderators, and Solutions.Annual review of psychology · 2026Review
- Virtual reality for the treatment of perinatal mental health: a rapid scoping review.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Perinatal risk and protective factors associated with diagnosis of mental health disorders in children by age 9 years.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- "It's like a car that doesn't like gasoline" - a qualitative study of siblings' understanding of anorexia nervosa in childhood: perspectives from siblings and parents.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- The Development of Quality Indicators to Assess Family Wellbeing Outcomes Following Engagement with Children's Mental Health Services in Ontario, Canada.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2025Article
- Parental emotional adjustment as a primary target for parenting programs: a cross-sectional study.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- The mediating role of parent-child bonding for the prospective association of prenatal depressive symptoms with child development at 14 months postpartum.BMC pediatrics · 2025Article
- Paternal Health and Health Behaviors During the Perinatal Period: Results from a Representative Survey of Fathers in Georgia, 2018-2019.Maternal and child health journal · 2025Article
- Transparency, quality, and statistical consistency of meta-analytic systematic reviews in clinical child and adolescent psychology (2022-2024): study protocol for a meta-review.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Parental depression and their children's marriage timing: The long-term consequences of parental mental disorders.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Experiences of patients talking about mental illness with their children: a qualitative study.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Caregiver mental health and school-aged children's academic and socioemotional outcomes: Examining associations and mediators in Northern Ghana.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Whilst there is growing evidence highlighting the importance of paternal mental illness (PMI) on child development, this relationship still remains under-studied and often over-looked. Considering the increasingly active role of fathers in their children's upbringing, a comprehensive overview of the impact of PMI on child development is overdue. This study aimed to combine and synthesise currently available evidence on the relationship between PMI and multiple domains of child development. Narrative synthesis of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the relationship between PMI and child development (mental health and social, emotional, language, cognitive or adaptive behaviour), published between 1980 to December 2021, was conducted in line with PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Review quality was assessed based on AMSTAR-2 criteria and respective study confidence was interpreted in line with GRADE scoring. All relevant meta-analytic effect sizes were converted to odds ratios (OR) and grouped using a random effects model. Grouped meta-analyses saw PMI to have a significant, detrimental effect on all studied domains of child development [OR: 1.54; 95% CI (1.36-1.74)]. Subgroup analyses saw PMI affecting both internalising [OR: 1.62; 95% CI (1.27-2.08)] and externalising [OR: 1.63; 95% CI (1.28-2.08)] child behaviours to a similar extent. However, included reviews were of poor methodological quality, demonstrating either low or critically low confidence. These results show a consistent and influential effect of PMI on child development. The relationship between fathers' mental illness and child development warrants further investigation, as current research is limited in scope, particularly regarding cognitive domains of child development and non-affective PMI diagnoses.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.