Children and Youth with a Parent with a Mental Health or Substance Use Problem: Facts and Figures in The Netherlands 

These figures present an estimate of the number of parents with a mental illness or addiction problem in the Netherlands and the number of children growing up with these parents (one or both). Below the figure is a description of how these estimates were developed. When referring to this data, see the heading “References”.

In the Netherlands, according to the DSM-5 criteria, there are:

• 506,000 parents with a mental illness and/or addiction with children aged up to 12 years living at home
• 671,000 parents with a mental illness and/or addiction with children aged up to and including 17 years living at home

These include mood disorders, anxiety disorders, ADHD, or an alcohol or drug disorder. Specific phobias and mild drug or alcohol disorders are not included in this calculation due to the disease burden of these conditions being relatively small. Other mental disorders, such as borderline personality disorder, eating disorder, or schizophrenia, were not included as they were not collected by the study on which these figures were developed. You can read more about about data collection under the heading “How did we calculate these figures”.

Over a quarter (27.9%) of all children up to 17 years old living at home in the Netherlands are living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problem. The absolute figure is:

• 664,000 children up to and including 12 years of age
• 900,000 children and youth up to and including 17 years of age

What else do we know about the total group of children and youth living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problem up to age 17?

• 44% of these children have a parent with two or more mental disorders (392,000 children)
• 13% of them have a parent with an alcohol or drug disorder (117,000 children)
• 7% have a parent with a dual diagnosis: these parents have a mood or anxiety disorder or ADHD as well as an alcohol or drug disorder (59,000 children)
• 52% have a parent who has had contact with a care provider working in general health care, mental health care or addiction services in the past year (466,000 children)

How did we calculate the figures?

The figures on this page are based on data from two data sources; the NEMESIS-3 study, a national study into the mental health and well-being of adult Dutch people, and data pulled from CBS.

In the calculation of the number of children and youth living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problem, the annual prevalence was used: it examined whether participants had a mental illness or alcohol or drug disorder in the past 12 months. Whether the participants have children and what age these children are is included in this information. Based on these data, it was calculated how many participants with children up to and including 17 years of age (or up to and including 12 years of age) living at home had a mental illness. A distinction was made between adults raising children in single-parent households and those with a partner.

Among those living with a partner, no information was collected on the mental health of the partner. An estimate was therefore made of how many parents without mental illness living with a partner have a partner who does have a mental illness.

In addition, among this group of parents, it was calculated how many of these parents:

• have one or more mental disorders,
• have an alcohol or drug disorder,
• have a dual diagnosis (a mood or anxiety disorder or ADHD and an alcohol or drug disorder),
• have used any care in the year prior to the NEMESIS-3 study.

Furthermore, it is important to note that NEMESIS-3 focuses on mental disorders that are relatively common and can be reliably diagnosed by an interview. For this reason, not all mental disorders were identified in the study and thus not included in the calculation of these figures.

In addition, we collected information from CBS Statline on the total number of children living at home up to age 17. We also looked at how many children are growing up in one-parent and two-parent households and how many children these households consist of. For a household with three or more children, no exact number is known from CBS data. For this reason, for these households, the number of children was set to three.

Based on the CBS data on children up to 17 years old living at home and the prevalence of the number of participating parents with children of this age with a mental illness in the NEMESIS-3 study, an estimate was made for the number of children in the Netherlands growing up with a parent with a mental illness or an alcohol or drug disorder.

Further explanation

There are a number of limitations of the data used to develop the estimates of the number of parents with a mental illness and the number of children and youth living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problems. In addition, several assumptions were made in making the calculations. As a result, the estimate of the number of children and youth living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problem in the Netherlands may be an under- or overestimate.

The main reasons why these figures could be considered underestimations, and the actual number of children and youth living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problem is in reality higher, are as follows:

• A number of mental disorders are not included in this estimate.
• Children and youth living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problem residing in an institution (such as youth care or disability care) are not included in the calculations.
• The number of children in a household of three or more children has been set to three. This means that the fourth, fifth, etc. child in a family is not included in the estimate.
• In single-parent families, no information is known about the second-home situation of the child. Thus, children who have a parent with mental illness in a second-home situation are not included in this estimation.

On the other hand, it could be considered that the children and youth living with a parent with a mental health or substance use problem figure may be an overestimate because it is assumed that people with and without a mental illness are equally likely to have a partner with a mental illness. It is plausible that the probability is lower for the group without mental illness.

Reference

When using this information as a source, please follow the example below as a source reference.

• van Dorsselaer, S., Ramaker, V., de Gee, A., ten Have, M. KOPP/KOV: Facts and figures. National size of KOPP/KOV group. Consulted on [date]. Trimbos Institute, Utrecht

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