Mentally ill parents are often sceptical about professional help for their children although these children face an increased risk to develop a mental disease themselves. To get a better understanding of needs and help-seeking behaviour in those families a systematic literature review was conducted. Four databases (FIS, PsycINFO, PSYNDEX, PubPsych) were scanned for international and national research literature. Out of 18,057 articles 56 were included which report quantitative or qualitative studies taking the children's and parents' perspectives into account. A thematic synthesis was done to categorize the needs. Results concerning the help-seeking behaviour and the influence of demographic variables were extracted and summarized. Our results were limited by the aspect that no evaluation of study quality had been made and influences on the categorizing process by the authors' subjective perceptions are likely. There were a lot of hints regarding the needs of the families, but little report was found about help-seeking behaviour and demographic variables. The "health literacy" concept was discussed as a basis for further research in this area.
Keywords: Bedarf; Bedürfnis; Hilfesuchverhalten; Prävention; Psychiatrie; help-seeking behaviour; needs; prevention; psychiatry.