The increased vulnerability to personal mental health difficulties among those with mental health difficulties within their family are in line with existing research [13]. This stresses the recognised need to obtain further information to inform health professionals and policy makers concerning the provision of support services, which may need to be targeted towards those with mental health difficulties within their family. This finding may represent an increased family burden associated with dealing with mental health difficulties within the family as suggested by earlier research [13,21]. However, on the other hand, mental health difficulties are known to have many complex psychobiological risk factors [29], and our current results may reflect the common presence of these across the family. The current findings may reflect the presence of wider environmental problems within this group of individuals, and they may simply be reporting more burden because they too have mental health difficulties themselves and thus have a reduced ability to deal with the stress associated with caregiving [29]. This is somewhat akin to what is discussed as the family effect versus the caregiver effect [30]. No inferences can be made regarding causality. Further research on the dynamics underlying the presence of mental health difficulties within the family and the presence of personal mental health problems within the past 12 months is warranted.