The Enduring Effects of Parental Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drug Use on Child Well-being: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis.

Sofie Kuppens,Andy P Siddaway,Vanessa Gross,Simon C Moore,Emily Lowthian

doi:10.1017/s0954579419000749

Sofie Kuppens, Andy P Siddaway + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579419000749

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Abstract

The effects of psychoactive substance abuse are not limited to the user, but extend to the entire family system, with children of substance abusers being particularly at risk. This meta-analysis attempted to quantify the longitudinal relationship between parental alcohol, tobacco, and drug use and child well-being, investigating variation across a range of substance and well-being indices and other potential moderators. We performed a literature search of peer-reviewed, English language, longitudinal observational studies that reported outcomes for children aged 0 to 18 years. In total, 56 studies, yielding 220 dependent effect sizes, met inclusion criteria. A multilevel random-effects model revealed a statistically significant, small detriment to child well-being for parental substance abuse over time (r = .15). Moderator analyses demonstrated that the effect was more pronounced for parental drug use (r = .25), compared with alcohol use (r = .13), tobacco use (r = .13), and alcohol use disorder (r = .14). Results highlight a need for future studies that better capture the effect of parental psychoactive substance abuse on the full breadth of childhood well-being outcomes and to integrate substance abuse into models that specify the precise conditions under which parental behavior determines child well-being.Registration: PROSPERO CRD42017076088.

Highlights

The effects of psychoactive substance abuse are not limited to the user but extend to the entire family system and society at large
Millions of children are likely to be affected by parental psychoactive substance abuse, as estimates suggest that 12.3% of US children aged 17 years or younger reside in a home with at least one parent with a substance abuse disorder (Lipari & Van Horn, 2017)
As the potential method effect remains unexplored for the parental substance abuse–child well-being relationship, we examined the moderating role of informant and data collection mode

Summary

Introduction

The effects of psychoactive substance abuse are not limited to the user but extend to the entire family system and society at large. The extent and nature of this relationship is currently unknown, because findings in the literature vary considerably in magnitude and studies have typically focused on a subset of child well-being outcomes or a specific parental substance abuse type. A systematic synthesis of the available evidence using an overarching framework is needed to quantify the extent to which parental substance abuse predicts detrimental child well-being outcomes over time in order to draw more general conclusions and to determine the degree of heterogeneity in this relationship while identifying factors that could explain any inconsistencies. It would be possible to identify gaps in the research literature and key directions for future research To address these important knowledge gaps, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the longitudinal relationship between parental psychoactive substance abuse and child wellbeing that included multiple substance abuse types and well-being domains. The following study and sample characteristics that could potentially moderate the strength of the relationship between substance abuse and well-being were examined

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Conclusion