School Refusal and Parental Illness: A Narrative Review

Introduction School refusal (SR) affects many young people and has short‐ and long‐term consequences on their development. Early interventions improve SR prognosis. Among the risk factors studied, parental illness is often mentioned. This narrative review assesses the frequency and strength of the link between SR and parental illness and its specificities. Methods PsycInfo, PsycArticles, Google Scholar and PubMed were queried, resulting in the inclusion of 18 studies. Results This link exists, but the number of robust studies is limited. While often acknowledged, it is seldom considered the main topic and is more often found with parental mental illness than physical illness. Discussion This association, observed in both quantitative and qualitative studies, seems to correspond to clinical reality. This review highlights the lack of precise data on parental illnesses in the SR literature and the limited hypotheses put forward to explain this link. This relationship requires greater attention in order to better understand and improve support for these children and adolescents and their families.