Children's impact on the mental health of their older mothers and fathers: findings from the .

The relation between social support and mental health has been thoroughly researched and structural characteristics of the social network have been widely recognised as being an important component of social support. The aim of this paper is to clarify the association between children and depressive mood states of their older parents. Based on international comparative data from the we analysed how the number of children, their proximity and the frequency of contact between older parents and their children are associated with the mental health of older people, using the EURO-D index.