School Outcomes Among Children Following Death of a Parent

Författare
Can Liu, Alessandra Grotta, Ayako Hiyoshi, Lisa Berg, Mikael Rostila
Titel
School Outcomes Among Children Following Death of a Parent
Utgivningsår
2022
Tidskrift
Jama Network Open
Volym
5
Häfte
4
Url
doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.3842
Sammanfattning

Abstract
IMPORTANCE To better support children with the experience of parental death, it is crucial to
understand whether parental death increases the risk of adverse school outcomes.
OBJECTIVES To examine whether parental death is associated with poorer school outcomes
independent of factors unique to the family, and whether children of certain ages are particularly
vulnerable to parental death.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This population-based sibling cohort study used Swedish national register-based longitudinal data with linkage between family members. Register data werecollected from January 1, 1990, to December 31, 2016. Data analyses were performed on July 14, 2021. The participants were all children born between 1991 and 2000 who lived in Sweden before turning age 17 years (N = 908 064).
EXPOSURE Parental death before finishing compulsory school.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Mean school grades (year-specific z scores) and ineligibility for upper secondary education on finishing compulsory school at age 15 to 16 years. Population-based cohort analyses were conducted to examine the association between parental death and school outcomes using conventional linear and Poisson regression models, after adjustment for
demographic and parental socioeconomic and health indicators measured before childbirth. Second, using fixed-effect linear and Poisson regression models, children who experienced parental death before finishing compulsory school were compared with their siblings who experienced the death after. Third, the study explored the age-specific associations between parental death and school outcomes.
RESULTS In the conventional population-based analyses, bereaved children (N = 22 634; 11 553
boys [51.0%]; 11 081 girls [49.0%]; mean [SD] age, 21.0 [2.8] years) had lower mean school grade z scores (adjusted β coefficient, −0.19; 95% CI, −0.21 to −0.18; P < .001) and a higher risk of ineligibility for upper secondary education than the nonbereaved children (adjusted risk ratio, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.32-1.41; P < .001). Within-sibling comparisons using fixed-effects models showed that experiencing parental death before finishing compulsory school was associated with lower mean school grade z scores (−0.06; 95% CI, −0.10 to −0.01; P = .02) but not with ineligibility for upper secondary education (adjusted risk ratio, 1.07; 95% CI, 0.93-1.23; P = .34). Independent of birth order, losing a parent at a younger age was associated with lower grades within a family.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this cohort study, childhood parental death was associated
with lower school grades after adjustment for familial confounders shared between siblings. Children who lost a parent may benefit from additional educational support that could reduce the risk of adverse socioeconomic trajectories later in life

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