Research Review: Grandparental care and child mental health – a systematic review and meta-analysis
Wang, Yihang, Chen, Xintai, Wang, Anzhuo, Jordan, Lucy Porter, and Lu, Shuang (2024) Research Review: Grandparental care and child mental health – a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 65 (4). pp. 568-586.
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Abstract
Background: The number of children residing in grandfamilies is growing worldwide, leading to more research attention on grandparental care over the past decades. Grandparental care can influence child well-being in various forms and the effects vary across contexts. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we synthesize the evidence on the relation between grandparental care and children's mental health status.
Methods: We identified 5,745 records from seven databases, among which 38 articles were included for review. Random effects meta-analyses were used to synthesize evidence from eligible studies. We also examined the variability across study and participant characteristics, including study design, recruitment method, child age, child gender, study region, family type, comparison group, and outcome rater.
Results: The meta-analysis consisted of 344,860 children from the included studies, whose average age was 10.29, and of which 51.39% were female. Compared with their counterparts, children being cared for by their grandparents had worse mental health status, including more internalizing problems (d = −0.20, 95% CI [−0.31, −0.09], p =.001), externalizing problems (d = −0.11, 95% CI [−0.21, −0.01], p =.03), overall mental problems (d = −0.37, 95% CI [−0.70, −0.04], p =.03), and poorer socioemotional well-being (d = −0.26, 95% CI [−0.49, −0.03], p =.03). The effects varied by study design and child gender.
Conclusions: The findings highlight that grandparental care is negatively associated with child mental health outcomes with trivial-to-small effect sizes. More supportive programs and interventions should be delivered to grandfamilies, especially in disadvantaged communities.
| Item ID: | 81904 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1469-7610 |
| Keywords: | children, grandparental care, Mental health, meta-analysis, socioemotional well-being |
| Copyright Information: | © 2024 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Mar 2025 01:52 |
| FoR Codes: | 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420601 Community child health @ 20% 44 HUMAN SOCIETY > 4403 Demography > 440301 Family and household studies @ 20% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 60% |
| SEO Codes: | 20 HEALTH > 2005 Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) > 200506 Neonatal and child health @ 30% 20 HEALTH > 2002 Evaluation of health and support services > 200207 Social structure and health @ 70% |
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