Adolescent mental health

Abstract

Background Father involvement and joint physical custody in post-separation families has become increasingly common, in Sweden 35 percent of the children of separated parents live alternately. Since parenthood is strongly gendered and expectations on mothers and fathers are different, the associations between child living arrangement and parental health may vary between women and men. This study analyzes how children’s living arrangements after parental separation is associated with health of parents and how this interacts with material and social circumstances. Methods Drawing on The Swedish Survey of Living Conditions (ULF, with child supplement) 2007-2011, we analyze how child living arrangements are associated with the self-rated health (SRH) and mental health (worry/anxiety) of parents in four family structures: intact, reconstituted, single with alternate living, and single with sole/main custody. Data on 3455 mothers and fathers with resident children aged 10-18 were analyzed by multivariate logistic regression, reported as Average Marginal Effect (AME showing percentage points difference between categories) adjusting for social and economic factors. Results Preliminary results show that sole care mothers reported poorer SRH (AME 5.7) compared to intact (ref) before adjustment for background factors. For fathers family type did not affect SRH, while background and social factors did. Poor mental health was highest among lone mothers with joint physical custody (AME 15.4) and fathers with sole care (AME 7.7) respectively. Fathers in all family types and single mothers (joint and sole care) had poorer mental health compared to intact (ref) following control for background and social factors. The results indicate that children´s living arrangements following separation is important to consider in relation to parental health. The pathways for men and women into different custodial arrangements differ, and so do the associations with parental health. Results Our findings showed a significant difference between children in intervention and in control group in the subscales internalizing, externalizing and total problems score p= <0.01 after two months follow-up. A medium effect size 0.62 was detected. program delivered to immigrated can improve and behaviour problems. a public health perspective it to immigrants to eliminate inequity in health. tailored parenting intervention contributed to high attendance and low drop-outs of parents.