Early stimulation and responsive care: a mediator of caregivers’ depression on the suspected developmental delay of left-behind children in China

Abstract

Purpose: Due to multiple factors, children left behind in rural areas suffer from delayed neurodevelopment (suspected developmental delay, SDD). This study aimed to analyze the effect of caregivers’ depression on left-behind children’s SDD, with early stimulation and responsive care mediating. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in villages of five Chinese counties. A total of 904 left-behind children and their primary family caregivers were enrolled. Information on the children and their caregivers were collected through face-to-face interviews. The Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (ZSDS) was used to measure caregivers’ depressive symptoms. The Ages and Stages questionnaires, third edition (ASQ-3) was used to screen children for SDD, which contains five domains: communication (CM), gross motor (GM), fine motor (FM), problem-solving (CG), and personal social (PS). Results: Of left-behind children’s caregivers, 39.7% experienced varying symptoms of depression. The prevalence of total SDD among left-behind children under three years was 31.4%. Caregivers’ ZSDS scores were positively correlated with the FM, GM, CG, and PS of the left-behind children. Caregivers’ early stimulation & responsive care was positively correlated with the CM, FM, CG, and PS of the left-behind children. Conclusion: Left-behind children under three years in rural China were at high risk of SDD and their caregivers’ mental health was not good. Caregivers’ depressive symptoms may negatively affect the suspected developmental delay of left-behind children through caregivers providing less early stimulation and responsive care. A comprehensive intervention should be conducted to promote the health of left-behind children and their caregivers.

The effects of Latino Dance intervention on academic and general self-efficacy with left-behind children: An experimental study in China

“…In particular, previous studies showed that LBCs have a higher level of school dropouts ( Li and Hu, 2021 ; Wang Haining, 2021 ) due to the lack of parental supervision and family education ( Li and Hu, 2021 ), which heavily impacts LBCs in various aspects of their lives, such as their academic achievement ( Song et al, 2018 ; Wang et al, 2019 ; Gu, 2022 ), future life opportunities ( Ge et al, 2019 ), as well as they were suffered from mental health conditions ( Chen et al, 2022 ; Zhou et al, 2022 ), such as high suicidal thoughts ( Zhou et al, 2022 ), high risk of delayed neurodevelopment ( Li et al, 2021 ), depressive symptoms ( Ma et al, 2022 ), antisocial behavioural ( Liu et al, 2022 ), lower self-esteem ( Zhou et al, 2022 ) and lower self-efficacy ( Liang et al, 2018 ). He et al (2020) and Gao et al (2022) highlighted that improving the self-efficacy and academic performance of LBCs has become a widely discussed topic in academia recently.…”