Gloomy parents may take kids to doc more often

■ Sad parents make kids sick

London, Aug. 2: Parents with depression may be more likely to take their children to the doctor than those without mental health problems, a UK study suggests.

When parents are depressed, kids are 41 percent more likely to visit the emergency room, 47 percent more likely to be admitted to the hospital and 67 percent more likely to have outpatient clinic visits than when parents aren’t depressed, researchers found.

“Our study did not explore the reason for the link between parents' mental health and their children's use of health services, however, there are several possible explanations,” said lead study author Kathryn Dreyer of the Health Foundation in London.

“Parental depression might be a consequence of prolonged illness in a child,” Dreyer said by email.

As reported in BMJ Pediatrics Open, Dreyer and colleagues reviewed one year of electronic health records for more than 25,000 patients registered with a multisite medical practice in London. This included 6,738 children in 3,373 households.

Roughly 41 percent of kids lived in single- parent households, another 41 percent lived with both parents.

Overall, almost 1,000 kids, or 16 percent, had a parent diagnosed with depression.

After researchers accounted for parents' use of healthcare, parental depression was still associated with increased odds of children using health services.