Poster #59 - Parent-child contact during placement and mental health: A meta-analysis

• In Event: Poster Session 05

Abstract

Children placed in out-of-home care following maltreatment show high prevalences of mental health problems (e.g. Bronsard et al., 2016; Hambrick et al., 2016). Maltreatment experiences prior to placement and disruptions in attachment relationships constitute important risk factors that are likely to have long term consequences on child adaptation (Dubois-Comtois et al., 2021). Thus, placement decisions need to be made in the best interest of the child to further limit the exposition to negative experiences. Contact with biological parents is often maintained during out-of-placement to preserve family ties and increase feelings of well-being (Sanchirico & Jablonka, 2000). However, this placement modality has not received much attention from researchers limiting our understanding of its impact on children's mental health. A recent systematic review reveals a lack of consensus in the literature regarding the effect of contact on mental health (Poitras et al., 2021), highlighting the need to test this association meta-analytically.

The purpose of this meta-analysis is to summarize research findings on the association between contact with biological parents and mental health in the context of out-of-home placement and to test potential moderating effects.

The PRISMA criteria were applied to select the studies. Nineteen studies comprising 80 effect sizes (N = 4,603) were included. As these effect sizes were not independent, three-level meta-analytic approach was chosen. The studies were published between 1997 and 2021.

Findings of a three-level random effects meta-analysis, that takes into consideration variance between effect sizes extracted from the same study, revealed that the association between contact with biological parents and mental health problems was not significant (r = -0.015, p = .448, CI95% [-0.236, 0.236]). However, a significant within-study (level 2) variation was observed. When testing moderation effects, significantly weaker effect sizes were obtained when a greater proportion of children had experienced physical abuse or were placed in non-relative foster care. We also examined whether effect sizes varied as a function of the maximum visitation frequency in studies in which groups with different visitation frequencies were compared (k = 8 studies with 56 effect sizes). These analyses revealed that compared to children with no parental visitation or who had contacts less than one a week, those who had contacts at least once a week showed less mental health problems (r = -0.16, p < .001, 95% CI [-0.25, -0.07]). Children who met with their parents less than one a week but at least once a month did not differ from those who had less or no visitation (r = 0.05, p < .001, 95% CI [-0.05, 0.14]) nor did children with less than monthly visitation differ from those who had no contact with their parents (r = 0.08, p < .001, 95% CI [-0.04, 0.20]).

These findings suggest that regular parental visitation may be associated with better mental health outcomes. They also highlight the importance of examining other factors such as prior experiences of maltreatment and type of foster care. To better understand the processes linking contacts and mental health, studies should now focus on quality of parent-child visits.

Authors

• Camille DANNER TOUATI, paris
  Presenting Author

• Aino Elina Sirparanta, Paris 8 University

• Karine Dubois-Comtois, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)

• Emylie Giguere

• Anne-Sophie DeBorde

• Raphaele Miljkovitch, Universite Paris 8