Biopsychosocial Distress among Offspring of Mentally Ill Clients

Mental illness causes social isolation of mentally ill clients and their children. The offspring of mentally ill clients experience psychosocial distress due to rejection and discrimination from the public, they experience low self-esteem due to inadequate meeting of their needs by their parental figures when comparing with their contemporary children. Offspring of mentally ill clients experience stress and inadequate coping with their parental mental illness. Families experience social isolation, financial hardship and marital discord. The children in the family were genetically, psychologically and environmentally distressed (Reupert A, Mayberry D, 2010). Children of mentally ill parents face many problems like neglect, exposure to violence and trauma, housing and custodial instability, developmental delays, stigma and isolation (Hoppingwinn A,2012).Ineffective coping of children leads to poor psychosocial development, compromised emotional and mental wellbeing (Aldridge J,2012). It is important to identify the Bio psychosocial distress among offspring of mentally ill clients. The main objectives of the study were to assess the Bio psychosocial distress among offspring of mentally ill clients, find the relationship among Biological, Psychological and Social distress in offspring of mentally ill clients and determine the association between bio psychosocial distress and selected demographic variables of offspring of mentally ill clients.