Poster #42 - Is age of entry into out-of-home care related to mental health outcomes? A meta-analysis

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Child maltreatment is related to negative mental health outcomes (e.g., Gruhn & Compas, 2020; Maclean et al., 2019). In cases of maltreatment, out-of-home placement is aimed at protecting the child whose development is compromised. However, children in out-of-home care are particularly at risk of developing mental health problems (e.g., Bronsard et al., 2016; Hambrick et al., 2016). Literature suggests that placement-related factors may constitute protective or risk factors for mental health outcomes (e.g., Danner Touati et al., 2021). Age at entry into out-of-home care could play a crucial role as children placed at later ages may be exposed to deleterious environments for longer periods of time than those who enter care younger. Despite its association with placement breakdown (Oosterman et al., 2007), child age at placement was never considered as a main factor associated with mental health in a meta-analysis on of out-of-home children.
This meta-analysis was aimed at assessing the effect of age at first entry into out-of-home care on problematic mental health outcomes and at testing potential moderating effects.
The PRISMA criteria were applied to select the studies. Nineteen studies comprising 44 effect sizes (N = 4,986) were included. These studies were published between 2008 and 2022. Multiple effect sizes were extracted from several studies and a three-level meta-analytic approach was used to account for the effect size dependency (Assink & Wibbelink, 2016).
Findings of the three-level random effects meta-analysis revealed that the association between age at first placement and mental health problems was significant (r = 0.09, p = .014). As the age at first entry into out-of-home placement increased the mental health problems also increased. Significant between-study (level 3) variation was observed. Moderator analyses revealed that significantly larger effect sizes were obtained when a greater proportion of children were placed in kinship care and weaker effect sizes were found when more children were placed in institutional care settings.
These findings underline the importance of early detection and intervention in cases of childhood maltreatment. It also shows that the placement setting can exacerbate or reduce the effect of age on mental health, either because of the opportunities offered by these settings (e.g., more or less contact with a positive caregiver) or because of the child's functioning prior to placement that may have influenced the choice of setting. It would be interesting to seek to identify protective factors that could mitigate the impact of late entry into out-of-home care on children’s adjustment.

Authors

• Aino Elina Sirparanta, Paris 8 University
  Presenting Author

• Camille DANNER TOUATI, paris

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

• Emylie Giguere

• Anne-Sophie DeBorde

• Raphaele Miljkovitch, Universite Paris 8