This study reports the possibility of accomplishing a survey in an ordinary psychiatric service organization to identify the children and the adolescents in families with a parent with mental illness and to highlight the number of patients in psychiatric treatment with little or virtually no contact with their minor children. The prevalence of patients being parents to minor children was 36% in the total sample consisting of 137 patients, from both inpatient and outpatient services, participating in the survey. Three of four patients were living together with the children. A higher proportion of patients in the outpatient unit were parents to minor children, and more often lived together with them. There were no differences in prevalence of patients with minor children according to sex or diagnostic subgroup. However, female patients more often and patients with a psychosis diagnosis more seldom had the custody of the children. A majority of the patients had communicated with their children about their own situation, showing that psychiatric patients care a lot about the situation of their children, although, according to the patients, the psychiatric services only take an active part in this information in a minority of the cases. The study may be found to be a basis for inspiring structured interventions and treatments programmes, including the minor children of the adult patients seeking psychiatric treatment. Prevention of mental disorders in the oncoming generation is an important issue for all psychiatric professionals, especially in co-operation between adult and child/adolescent psychiatric services.

Objective: This research seeks to study the impact on family function after 3 months of treatment with amphetamine. Method: A total of 43 children, 6 to 11 years of age, with ADHD were treated with amphetamine for 3 months. Family function was studied before and after treatment by parent self-rating and independent observer ratings of videotaped parentchild interactions. Results: The families with a child with ADHD were found to be more dysfunctional than control families. Families with children with severe ADHD-behavior showed evidence of more family dysfunction compared to families with children with less severe ADHD behavior. After 3 months of treatment with amphetamine, the children's behavior and the mother's well-being and some aspects of parent-reported and observer-rated family functioning improved. Conclusion: This study gives support to the notion that some aspects of family dysfunction may be related to the child's ADHD behavior.KEY WORDS: attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder; family function; videotaped family tasks; amphetamine treatment ADHD, 3

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