Research on father-headed households: Risk behaviors, victimisation and mental distress amoung adolesents

Part of an ongoing series looking at what the research literature actually says about father-headed households. The major findings are highlighted in bold.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/b182j04rp083l088/

Journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Publisher Steinkopff
ISSN 0933-7954 (Print) 1433-9285 (Online)
Issue Volume 42, Number 8 / August, 2007
Category ORIGINAL PAPER
DOI 10.1007/s00127-007-0210-3
Pages 656-663
Subject Collection Medicine
SpringerLink Date Thursday, May 24, 2007

ORIGINAL PAPER
Risk behaviours, victimisation and mental distress among adolescents in different family structures
Beata Jablonska1 and Lene Lindberg1
(1)
Stockholms Centre for Public Health, Stockholm County Council, Box 17533, 118 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Accepted: 24 April 2007 Published online: 23 May 2007
Abstract

Background Previous studies have shown an elevated risk with regard to social and behavioural domains in adolescents of single parents. However, the diversity of single parent families concerning gender of the resident parent has seldom been taken into account when investigating the relation between family structure and children’s negative outcomes. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate risk behaviours, victimisation and mental distress among adolescents in different family structures using more detailed sub-groups of single parents (i.e., single mother, single father and shared physical custody).

Methods The sample consisted of 15,428 ninth graders from all municipal and private schools in the county of Stockholm (response rate 83.4%). Risk behaviours included use of alcohol, illicit drugs and smoking. Victimisation was measured by experiences of exposure to bullying and physical violence. Mental distress was assessed with the anxious/depressed and aggressive behaviour syndrome scales in the Youth Self Report (YSR). Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the associations between family structure and outcome variables.

Results Adolescents in single-mother/father families were at higher risk of risk behaviours, victimisation and mental distress than their counterparts in two-parent families. However, after control for possible confounders the associations between victimisation, aggressive behaviour problems and single motherhood were no longer significant, whereas these relations remained for children living with single fathers. Adolescents in shared physical custody run no increased risk of any of the studied outcomes (except drunkenness) after adjustment for covariates. Post hoc analyses revealed that adolescents in single-father families were at higher risk for use of alcohol, illicit drugs, drunkenness, and aggressive behaviour as compared to their peers in single-mother families, whereas no differences were found between adolescents in single-mother families and those in shared physical custody.

Conclusions Children of single parents should not be treated as a homogenous group when planning prevention and intervention programmes. Researchers and professionals should be aware of and consider the specific problems of single parent children and that their problems may vary depending on their living arrangements.