Fighting parents affect children's mental health

Children whose parents fight, or were violent to each other are more likely to have mental health problems when the grow up.

New research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that a child being exposed to such behaviour is a form of mistreatment, which leads to long term consequences to the child’s development.

The study examined adults in Paris who were asked about childhood problems such as separated parents, divorce, prison, abuse and social stresses.

Researchers found that people who were exposed to interparental violence had a 1.4 times higher risk of having depression, were more than three times more likely to be involved in conjugal violence, were almost five times more likely to mistreat their own child and 1.75 times more likely to have a dependence on alcohol.