Linking data on women in public family law court proceedings concerning their children to mental health service records in South London.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Maternal mental health problems and substance misuse are key risk factors for child neglect or abuse and court-mandated placement into care. Linkage between mental health records and family court data could raise awareness about parent mental health needs and inform approaches to address them.

Objectives

To evaluate data linkage between administrative family court data and electronic mental health records for a population-based mental health service for 1.3 million people in South London.

Methods

We deterministically linked administrative family court data for women (n=5463) involved in care proceedings in South London with service user records from the South London and Maudsley NHS Mental Health Trust (SLaM). We restricted the cohort to women involved in

SUBMITTER: Pearson RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8133060 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature