Understanding and Helping Families: Parents With Psychosis

The trial will be split into two stages. Stage 1: Parents with no history of serious mental health problems and parents who have a history of psychosis or schizophrenia, who have children aged 3-10 years old, will take part in the Revised Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) and the Modified Camberwell Family Interview (CFI). They will also complete various measures looking at parental well-being, depression, anxiety and stress as well as parenting behaviours and interpretations of their child behaviour. In addition the PANSS interview will also be used. These interviews will be coded to investigate attributional patterns. Stage 2: Parents who are experiencing psychosis, who took part in stage 1 will proceed to stage 2 if they want to. Parents will be seen weekly and take part in a guided self-help parenting intervention. This will require weekly visits over 10 weeks to the parents. During this time, symptoms, mood, general well-being and parenting behaviours will be monitored. There will be no randomisation: all parents experiencing psychosis will receive the intervention. Children do not attend the sessions, but it is hoped that parents practice the skills learned.