Research has shown that there is a link a mother's and a child's mental health. There is a pattern that where mothers have poor mental health, their children are at risk of developing mental health difficulties also. Research with parents of children with mental health difficulties has shown how distressing this can be for parents. For example, parents of young people who self-harm report significant distress related to their child's difficulties. We seek to explore the link between child mental health and subsequent maternal mental health. We focus on the mother as this is where there is most available data within ALSPAC. This will help us understand whether mothers are at risk of developing significant distress after their child has reported clinical levels of mental health difficulties.

We will also look at variables that describe family structure and characteristics of the mother and child. For example, we want to understand if child mental health problems are more likely to be linked to maternal mental health problems if family have a lower income or if the mother does not live with a partner. We are interested in factors that increase stress or reduce available support for mothers. This will help us identify if there may be characteristics that make a mother more likely to have poor mental health in relation to their child's distress. If so, this will help us make recommendations for how services may need to be made available to best support families.