Mapping the subjective importance of the topic ‘parenthood’ for parents with substance use disorder in inpatient rehabilitative care – an explorative qualitative study in Germany

TL;DR

This study explores how important the topic of parenthood is for parents with substance use disorder in Germany during inpatient rehab, highlighting their needs and the lack of structured support.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into the subjective importance of parenthood and specific needs of parents with SUD in inpatient care in Germany.

Findings

Parents with SUD recognize the impact of their condition on their children's upbringing and express a need for structured support.

Participants identified gaps in the support system and emphasized topics like setting boundaries and reducing parenting-related exhaustion.

The study highlights the need for a parenting-focused intervention within inpatient rehabilitation programs.

Abstract

In Germany, about 3 million children live with at least one parent with substance use disorder (SUD). Those parents face multiple challenges in daily life that concurrently affect their children. The inpatient stay of parents with SUD is seen as a possibility for an intervention (Kontext-Sucht-Intervention), centering on parents’ requests. Therefore, this study focuses on the importance of the topic of parenthood and parents’ perceived needs in inpatient rehabilitative care in Germany.

We conducted 37 semi-structured interviews with parents with SUD between March and September 2023 in seven inpatient rehabilitative clinics in Germany. Two clinics carried out the Kontext-Sucht Intervention, and we recruited five clinics without structured interventions on parenting to contrastingly explore the needs and derive the meaning of the topic from the parent’s perspective. We analysed the interviews using content-structured qualitative content analysis.

The results show that the topic parenthood is important to parents in inpatient rehabilitative treatment, as they recognise the influence of their disease on the upbringing of their children. Parents identify a gap in the support system, wish for a positive future for their children, and therefore address several parenting-related topics for treatment: e.g., setting boundaries, integration of accompanying children, partnership, single parenting, siblings, and reduction of exhaustion resulting from parenting tasks. They also citicise the lack of specific, structured therapeutic interventions for parents.

The findings suggest that there is a need for a parenting-focused intervention in inpatient rehabilitation, which should be provided by the rehabilitation system. The results are in line with general findings on families and substance use disorder purposes in SUD care.

DRKS00030950, (Registration Date 25.01.2023).

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13011-026-00707-8.