A new study on parental death and psychiatric disorders among individuals with and without experience of out-of-home care has been published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Out-of-home care and parental death are both associated with psychiatric disorders. However, it has remained unclear whether parental death moderates the association between out-of-home care and psychiatric disorders, particularly in relation to the timing and duration of out-of-home placement.
The study was based on a Swedish nationwide cohort of 944,138 individuals born in Sweden between 1972 and 1981, including 459,712 women and 484,426 men. Of these, 23,106 individuals, or 2.5 per cent, had experienced out-of-home care between the ages of 0 and 19. Psychiatric disorders were identified through the National Patient Register and examined as the outcome from ages 20 to 47. Information on parental death between ages 0 and 19, as well as familial covariates, was obtained from linked national registers. The researchers used sex-stratified Cox proportional hazard models to examine associations between out-of-home care, parental death and psychiatric disorders.
The findings showed that individuals with experience of out-of-home care had an increased risk of psychiatric disorders across adulthood, with the highest risks observed among those placed during their teenage years. Parental death was also associated with an increased psychiatric risk. However, the associations between parental death and psychiatric disorders were attenuated in several placement groups. Among women, this was observed in the teenage, long-term, and early-intermediate placement groups. Among men, it was observed in the early intermediate, teenage and early short-term placement groups, compared with individuals without experience of out-of-home care.
The study suggests that parental death adds limited additional risk within an already highly vulnerable and disadvantaged population. The findings highlight the importance of interventions that address multiple risks across different developmental periods.
Read more: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph23060732