Studies of children and adolescents in the child welfare system have traditionally focused on the mental health problems of this at-risk population. However, we know little about their lifestyles, how they spend their time or... [ view full abstract ]
Studies of children and adolescents in the child welfare system have traditionally focused on the mental health problems of this at-risk population. However, we know little about their lifestyles, how they spend their time or what they do in their free time (eating habits, body mass index, tooth brushing, physical activity, sedentary behaviours, and alcohol and tobacco use). Furthermore, adolescence is an under-researched area in the context of child protection compared to infancy and toddlerhood, despite a large number of children in the system being in this developmental period. Adolescence is an important developmental period entailing critical changes in different developmental areas and therefore adolescent children in the child welfare system should be of special concern. Accordingly, this study focuses on the lifestyles of a sample of adolescents living in adopted families, kinship care families and residential care, in comparison with a control group of community adolescents and amongst each other.
Method
Participants: The sample was comprised of 28,998 adolescents between 11 and 19 years old. Of them, 394 were adopted, 195 were living with theirs grandparents in kinship foster care and 35 adolescents were living in residential care. The remaining 28.374 subjects formed the control group of community adolescents. All of them took part in the 2014 Spanish edition of the WHO collaborative study Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC).
Instruments: The variables used were selected from the mandatory questions of the International HBSC questionnaire. The questions were about eating habits, body mass index, tooth brushing, body image satisfaction, physical activity, sedentary behaviours, tobacco use and alcohol use.
Statistical analysis: Descriptive analysis with mean comparisons (ANOVAs) and contingency tables (Chi square test) were performed, controlling for gender and age in all analysis. Cohen’s d and Cramer’s V were used to measure the effect size.
Results
Data analysis showed the control group and the adoptees as very similar. However, the results showed significant differences between the control group and the institutionalized and fostered adolescents. Specially, the differences seem to be higher in adolescents who live with their grandparents. Results showed that kinship adolescents have breakfast fewer days a week and show a higher rate of sedentary behaviours. Institutionalized and kinship adolescents have a higher consumption of tobacco than adoptees and control group.
Discussion
Coinciding with previous research, fostered and institutionalized adolescents show lower lifestyle quality than adoptees and the control group. Even though fostered adolescents show higher levels of health and psychological adjustment, they show lower lifestyle quality than institutionalized adolescents. The quality of the environment (like rigid timetables and professional supervision) has an effect on the life of institutionalized adolescents and could therefore explain these results. Likewise, it’s very likely that in kinship foster care situations there is less supervision by the grandparent caregivers. This fact demonstrates that grandparents need more support from the system and institutions.
Family foster care and adoption , Residential child care
