Parent's mental health and autistic children

A Swedish study of 32,162 children born between 1977 and 2003 has found that parents with autistic children were roughly twice as likely to have been hospitalized for a mental disorder as those whose children were not autistic. The link between autism and a parent's hospitalization for a mental disorder, such as depression or schizophrenia, was present regardless of the timing of the parent's diagnosis relative to the child's. Mothers and fathers diagnosed with schizophrenia were about twice as likely to have a child diagnosed with autism. The mothers of autistic children had higher rates of depression and personality disorders.

You can read more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/05/05/parental-mental-health-linked-to-autism-in-children/2223.html