Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Family Needs Studies: Relationships with Parent, Family and Child Functioning

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;">Findings from a research synthesis of the relationships between family needs and parent, family, and child functioning are reported. The synthesis included 31 studies conducted in 12 different countries. The studies were conducted between 1987 and 2021 and included 4,543 participants. Eight different family needs scales or adaptations of the scales were completed by the study participants (mothers, fathers, or grandmothers of children with developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, or medical conditions). The outcome measures included caregiver psychological health, parenting stress, parenting burden, parenting beliefs, family coping strategies, family functioning, family support, and child functioning. The correlations between family needs and the outcome measures were used as the sizes of effects for evaluating the strength of the relationships between measures. Results showed that unmet family needs were associated with more negative and less positive family and family member functioning and fewer unmet family needs were associated with more positive and less negative family and family member functioning. The sizes of effect for parenting stress and burden were larger than were the sizes of effects for each of the other outcome measures. Child condition and study quality moderated the relationship between family needs and parenting stress and burden but not the other outcome measures. The results are discussed in terms of one component of family systems intervention models.</p>

Child studies through the lens of applied family social systems theory

“…A series of meta-analyses have been conducted to determine if measures of the four different family systems intervention components are related to variations in parent, family, and child functioning. This has included meta-analyses of family needs studies (Dunst, 2022b), family resources studies (Dunst, 2021d(Dunst, , 2021e, 2022d, family support studies (Dunst, 2022a(Dunst, , 2022c, family strengths studies (Dunst, 2021b;2021c;Dunst, Serrano, et al, 2021), and family-centered help-giving practices studies (Dunst, Trivette, & Hamby, 2007, 2008. The caregivers in the studies in the meta-analyses were primarily mothers but also included fathers and grandmothers of children and adolescents with and without identified disabilities or chronic health conditions.…”

Initial Evidence for the Reliability and Validity of New Survey Measures to Evaluate Family Outcomes of Kinship and Adoption Navigator Programs

“…The BASICS was designed to fill a need for a brief scale that would capture kinship caregivers' and adoptive parents' perception of their family's need for services. Existing validated scales (e.g., see Dunst, 2022) were found to be too long and lacked validation with kinship or adoptive families. The Family Needs Scale (Dunst et al, 1987) was the only identified measure that had some initial testing with kinship families (Lee et al, 2016) but its 41-item structure deemed it too burdensome for the type of participant engagement that OhioKAN intended to foster.…”