Ability to Care for an Ill Loved One During the First COVID-19 Lockdown: Mediators of Informal Caregivers' Stress in Europe.

Informal caregivers are overlooked, healthcare actors. They are at particular risk of distress and suffer from poor mental health. This study aimed to investigate the perceived stress and modulating factors during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Europe, regardless of the illness that care recipients suffer from. Sociodemographic data, coping resources, and perceived stress level using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) questionnaire were assessed using a web-based survey in Switzerland, France, and Belgium with 232 informal caregivers. Mediation analyses were used to identify the factors that modulate stress. Higher perceived stress among informal caregivers was associated with a younger age for the care recipient, family relationship with the care recipient, cohabitation, and female sex of the informal caregiver. These associations were partially mediated by the fear of getting ill (age, cohabitation), the conviction that lockdowns had a negative impact on health (age, kinship), and the perceived deterioration of the care recipient's health (gender). The fear of losing the ability to cope with caregiving tasks due to an illness (COVID-19 and/or other) and the negative impact of the lockdown on care recipients' health, particularly on the mental health of young care recipients, increased the stress of informal caregivers. Our results emphasize the importance of informal caregiving support to prevent heightened stress in lockdown conditions, regardless of care recipient illness or kinship.

[Psychiatry]. / Psychiatrie.

Children of patients with psychiatric disorders are at higher risk to develop a psychiatric illness. In addition, phases of crisis and hospitalization of the parent are often traumatizing to the children, especially during childhood. Although a specific offer to face these issues is compulsory in some countries, such is not the case in Switzerland. In this paper we describe the implementation of a special offer for children of parents with mental illness (Famille +) in the service of general psychiatry at the Department of psychiatry of the Lausanne University hospital in Switzerland. We will also discuss the development and implementation of the Joint Crisis Plan, a collaborative tool where psychiatric patients and clinicians define the strategies that should be applied in case of crisis, which strengthens the empowerment of patients and their participation to decisions about their treatment.

Les enfants de patients souffrant d'un trouble psychiatrique ont un risque accru de développer eux-mêmes des troubles psychiatriques au cours de leur vie. De plus, les phases de crise et les hospitalisations de parents sont souvent vécues de manière traumatisante par leurs enfants. Bien qu'une offre spécialisée pour les enfants de patients psychiatriques soit obligatoire dans certains pays nordiques, tel n'est pas le cas en Suisse. Le développement d'un tel programme est décrit dans cet article. Il y sera aussi question du développement et de l'implantation du plan de crise conjoint, un outil partenarial entre patients et soignants qui définit les interventions et les modalités de prise en charge en cas de crise et permet ainsi de renforcer l'autodétermination des patients et leur participation aux décisions qui les concernent.