Young SMILES: An intervention to help children and adolescents with mentally ill parents

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Children who have parents with serious mental illness e.g. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder; Mental and Behavioural Disorders

• Registration Number: ISRCTN36865046
• Lead Sponsor: Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

Brief Summary

2018 protocol in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30314509 (added 08/04/2020) 2020 results in https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33196410/ (added 17/11/2020)

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Results First Posted: 1900-01-01
• Study Start: 2015-12-18
• Study Completion: 2018-12-31
• Last Update Posted: 30 November 2020

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 120

Inclusion Criteria

Children:
1. Children aged between 6 and 16 years with parents diagnosed with serious mental illness
2. Have at least 10 hours contact with the parent/carer with serious mental illness. (The children do not necessarily have to live with a mentally ill parent)
3. The children have some awareness of the parent’s mental illness, confirmed by the parent and/or the appropriate care coordinator. If the children have no awareness of the parent’s illness, it will be discussed how the parent and care coordinator can prepare the children before they start group work.

Parents:
1. Parents/carers with serious mental illness and their partners who may or may not have any mental health problems. The focus of our project is the children and their outcomes, rather than the parents. Therefore, we do not intend to carry out full clinical interviews with the parents and report diagnostic codes. We shall accept the primary and secondary diagnoses reported by a key health professional, such as the GP, care coordinator and key worker, as most of these parents are likely to receive secondary care or be monitored in primary care. This can be gleaned during referral into the study or, in the case of a self-referral by the parent, we shall obtain the diagnosis by contacting the parent’s appropriate care coordinator, e.g. GP or CPN, following the parent’s permission to do so.
2. The parents/carers/guardians understand the purpose and remit of the intervention for themselves and their children and consent to their child’s attendance and completion of outcome measures and interviews.

Exclusion Criteria

Children:
1. Children of parents diagnosed with common mental health problems (e.g. mild-moderate depression) or with primary substance misuse, rather than with a serious mental illness as defined in the inclusion criterion 1 above
2. The children have significant cognitive impairment or a learning disability or major mental illness or behavioural problems (as verified by their GP or other health professionals involved in the family’s care) which will make it impossible or unsafe for them to participate in group work
3. The children have already participated in Family SMILES (which is not applicable in the North East where Family SMILES is not available)

Parents:
The parent is extremely unwell at the time of eligibility assessment, which makes it difficult or unsafe for them to participate in group or individual work.

Study & Design

• Study Type: Interventional
• Study Design: Not specified