Mental health, behaviour problems and incidence of child abuse at the age of 16 years

Of the 1,575 pregnant women registered at the public Antenatal Health Care Service in the city of Link?ping, Sweden during 1983, an index group of 78 women was identified that met specific well-defined psychosocial risk criteria related to drug addiction, mental insufficiency, and particular social circumstances of possible relevance to problems of pregnancy and early child development. A further 78 pregnant women who did not meet the inclusion criteria were used as a reference group. The present study is a 16-year follow-up in which 43 (57%) of the original index children and 63 (82%) of the original reference children were examined on indices of mental health, and the presence of child abuse. Their mental health was assessed with the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) completed by the mothers and the Youth Self-Report (YSR) completed by the adolescents. The incidence of child abuse and Social Welfare interventions was obtained from Social Welfare records. The index children, especially the boys, displayed significantly poorer mental health as assessed by both CBCL (p<0.05) and YSR (p<0.02). Being an index child increased the odds ratio 16-27 times for different Social Welfare interventions, and child abuse had been investigated in 27% of the index children compared to 1% of the reference children.