Mental Health in International Adoptees as Teenagers and Young Adults. An Epidemiological Study

Abstract

Sweden has now around 38,000 individuals who have been adopted from other countries. Most often they are transracially adopted and have a different appearance from their new parents--"visible" adoptions. This study was made to explore the mental health of a teenager/young adult group that arrived with their families in the southernmost county of Sweden between 1970 and 1977. They were placed through the largest Swedish adoption agency at that time. One hundred and forty-seven families and their 211 adopted children, who were 13 years of age or older at the time of the investigation, were interviewed in their homes. CBCL, SCL-90, a self-esteem questionnaire, and two family relations inventories were also completed. Compared to nonadopted Swedish young persons of the same ages, who had been investigated with the same inventories in earlier epidemiological studies, the adoptees had as good mental health. The adoptees also reported good self-esteem. The pre-adoption conditions were more important than the age of arrival in itself for the risk of later maladaptation. Family relations, various aspects of identity, and peer relations explained much of the variance of mental health and self-esteem. Those who were most engaged in questions about their identity and felt mostly non-Swedish had more behaviour problems. The association, however, between the factor "Identity" and the mental health variables approached zero for the older subjects (18-27 years of age). The majority (about 90%) of the adoptees felt mostly Swedish. Seventy per cent didn't feel any connection to their country of origin.

Perceived relationship quality in adolescents following early social-emotional deprivation

“…Behaviorally, PI children adopted as sibling groups have higher ages at adoption but have lower or similar rates of behavior problems compared to single adoptees (Boer, Versluis-den Bieman, & Verhulst, 1994;Van den Oord, Boomsma, & Verhulst, 1994), and similar patterns are found for domestic adoptees (Erich & Leung, 2002;Hegar, 2005). This finding suggests a protective effect of having a sibling because older age at adoption is generally related to more, not fewer, behavior problems (Cederblad et al, 1999;Gunnar et al, 2007;Rutter et al, 2010).…”

“…Indirectly, several studies that use parent-reported measures of children's social problems, which are likely related to friendship quality, find that PI children have more reported social problems (Hoksbergen, Rijk, Van Dijkum, & Laak, 2004;Stams, Juffer, Rispens, & Hoksbergen, 2000;Verhulst, Althaus, & Versluis-Den Bieman, 1990) and disinhibited social behaviors (Bruce, et al, 2009) than non-PI children. Also, later adopted PI children (> 7-24 months at adoption) tend to have more parent-reported social problems than earlier adoptees (Cederblad, et al, 1999;Gunnar et al, 2007;Hawk & McCall, in press;Julian, 2010). These studies suggest that more exposure to institutions with deficient social-emotional relationships, few contingent-responsive interactions, and few opportunities to learn appropriate social skills, is related to more social and friendship problems.…”

Early Childhood Adversities and Trajectories of Psychiatric Problems in Adoptees: Evidence for Long Lasting Effects

“…Furthermore, many international adoptees experienced early maltreatment (Gunnar et al 2000;Verhulst et al 1992), but they were subsequently taken out of their problematic environment in childhood and raised in enriched circumstances. Previous studies in internationally adopted samples demonstrated effects of early adversities on mental health problems in childhood, adolescence or adulthood (e.g., Cederblad et al 1999;Fensbo 2004;Fisher et al 1997;Hoksbergen 1997;Juffer and Van IJzendoorn 2005;Marcovitch et al 1997;Verhulst et al 1992). These internationally adopted samplesproblems.…”

“…On the one hand, our results seem to confirm several studies, which found that early adversities have long-term effects on the level of psychiatric problems (e.g., Keiley et al 2001;Lansford et al 2002;Trickett and McBride-Chang 1995;Tyler 2002). For example, Cederblad et al (1999), studying mainly adoptees from Korea, India, and Colombia, showed an association between duration of care in an orphanage or foster home and mental health problems. Hoksbergen (1997) found that there was an increased risk of disruption and residential care in children adopted from Thailand, who had lived in an orphanage or had experienced several changes of caretaking places.…”

Cultural socialization in families with internationally adopted children.

“…This feeling of loss, in turn, has been found to be associated with greater depressive symptoms and lower self-worth among domestically and internationally adopted preadolescents (Smith & Brodzinsky, 2002). Similarly, Cederblad, Höök, Irhammer, and Mercke (1999) reported that uncertainty about one's ethnic identity and perceived discrimination are related to greater psychological distress and lower self-esteem among international adoptees. Adoptive parents, most of whom are White and of European descent, likewise are confronted with decisions about when and how to appropriately acknowledge and address ethnic and racial differences with their children without disrupting family bonds.…”