Abstract
The aim of the 6th phase of this longitudinal study was to establish whether children born through assisted reproduction involving reproductive donation were at risk for psychological problems following the transition to adolescence at age 14 and, if so, to examine the nature of these problems and the mechanisms involved. Eighty-seven families formed through reproductive donation, including 32 donor insemination families, 27 egg donation families, and 28 surrogacy families, were compared with 54 natural conception families. Standardized interviews, questionnaires, and observational assessments of the quality of parent-adolescent relationships and adolescent adjustment were administered to mothers, adolescents, and teachers. The mothers in surrogacy families showed less negative parenting and reported greater acceptance of their adolescent children and fewer problems in family relationships as a whole compared with gamete donation mothers. In addition, less positive relationships were found between mothers and adolescents in egg donation families than in donor insemination families as rated by both mothers and adolescents. There were no differences between family types for the adolescents themselves in terms of adjustment problems, psychological well-being, and self-esteem. Longitudinal analyses showed no differences between family types in negative parenting from age 7 to age 14, and a weaker association between negative parenting and adjustment difficulties for gamete donation than natural conception and surrogacy families. The findings suggest that the absence of a genetic link between mothers and their children is associated with less positive mother-adolescent relationships whereas the absence of a gestational link does not have an adverse effect. (PsycINFO Database Record
Attribution and reuse record
- Authors
- Golombok S, Ilioi E, Blake L, Roman G, Jadva V.
- Original journal
- Developmental psychology
- Publisher
- American Psychological Association
- Publication date
- 2017-07-31
- DOI
- 10.1037/dev0000372
- License
- CC BY 3.0
- Open repository
- Europe PMC · PMC5611761
- Collection
- School leadership launch collection
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Procedure
A psychologist trained in the study techniques visited the families at home. Written informed consent to participate in the investigation was obtained from the mother. Mothers and adolescents also gave written informed consent for the adolescents to participate. Ethical approval for the study was granted by the University of Cambridge Psychology, Research Ethics Committee. The mothers were administered a standardized interview that was digitally recorded. In addition, the mothers and adolescents completed standardized questionnaires and participated together in a video-recorded observational task that lasted 5–10 min. The adolescents’ teachers completed a questionnaire to give an independent assessment of the adolescents’ adjustment. As data were obtained by interview on issues relating to the child’s conception, it was not possible for interviewers to be blind to family type. However, a section of the interview on the child’s psychological adjustment was rated by a child psychiatrist who was unaware of the method of the child’s conception.
Index of Family Relationships (IFR)
Mothers and adolescents completed this 25-item questionnaire designed to measure problems in family relationships ( Hudson, 1989 ). The total score, which ranges from 0 to 100, gives an assessment of family relationship difficulties, with higher scores representing greater difficulties. Internal consistencies for the original sample ranged from 0.91 to 0.98, and for the present sample are .91 and .94 for the mother and adolescent questionnaires, respectively. The IFR has been found to show good discriminant validity and to distinguish between families with and without clinical problems.
Parental Acceptance Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ)
The short 24-item version of this questionnaire was administered to both mothers and adolescents to provide total scores of maternal acceptance/rejection comprising subscales of warmth/affection, hostility aggression, indifference/neglect, and undifferentiated rejection ( Rohner, 2001 ). Mothers completed the questionnaire regarding their feelings toward their adolescents and the adolescents completed the questionnaire regarding their perceptions of their mothers’ feelings toward them. Thus data on maternal acceptance/rejection was obtained from both mothers and adolescents. Higher scores represent greater rejection whereas lower scores represent greater acceptance, with scores above 60 representing higher levels of rejection than acceptance. The PARQ has been reported to have good internal consistency, with alpha values of 0.91 and 0.84, respectively, for the parent and adolescent versions. The alpha values for the current study were .66 and .82, respectively, for the parent and adolescent versions, with the discrepancy for the parent version resulting from high levels of maternal acceptance in the present study.
Parental Control Scale (PCS)
This 13-item measure of parental control was completed by mothers and adolescents to provide total scores of behavioral control ( Rohner, 2001 ). Mothers completed the questionnaire regarding the control they enforced on their adolescents and the adolescents completed the questionnaire regarding their perceptions of the control their mothers enforced on them. Thus data on maternal control was obtained from the perspectives of both mothers and adolescents. Higher scores reflected higher levels of behavioral control, with scores ranging from 13–26 indicating low control, 27–39 indicating moderate control, 40–45 indicating firm control, and 46–52 indicating restrictive control. The PCS has been shown to have good internal consistency with an average alpha of 0.73 from a meta-analysis of studies using this measure ( Rohner & Khaleque, 2003 ). The alphas for the current sample were .75 and .84 for mothers and adolescents, respectively.
Mother-adolescent interaction
Mothers and adolescents participated together in a video-recorded observational assessment involving a vacation planning task in which they were given 5 min to plan a 2-week family holiday for which they had unlimited funds ( Grotevant & Cooper, 1985 ). Mother-adolescent dyads were instructed to talk freely about whom they wished to go on the holiday, where they wished to go, and what they planned to do while there. The session was coded using the Parent-Child Interaction System ( Deater-Deckard & Petrill, 2004 ) to assess the construct of mutuality, that is, the extent to which the mother and child engaged in positive dyadic interaction characterized by warmth, mutual responsiveness, and cooperation. The following variables were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 ( no instances ) to 7 ( constant, throughout interaction ): (a) mother’s responsiveness to child assessed the extent to which the mother responded immediately and contingently to the child’s comments, questions, or behaviors; (b) child’s responsiveness to mother assessed the extent to which the child responded immediately and contingently to the mother’s comments, questions, or behaviors; (c) dyadic reciprocity assessed the degree to which the dyad showed shared positive affect, eye contact, and a “turn-taking” (conversationlike) quality of interaction; and (d) dyadic cooperation assessed the degree of agreement about whether and how to proceed with the task. To establish interrater reliability, 47 randomly selected interviews were coded by two raters who were unaware of family type. The intraclass correlations for child’s responsiveness to mother, dyadic reciprocity, and dyadic cooperation were 0.61, 0.71, and 0.69, respectively. It was not possible to calculate an intraclass correlation for mother’s responsiveness to child due to the restriction of range of the scores as most dyads obtained scores at the top end of the scale.
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was administered to adolescents to provide a measure of overall self-worth ( Rosenberg, 1979 ). This 10-item questionnaire ranging from 10 to 30, for which higher scores represent higher self-esteem and scores below 15 suggest low self-esteem, has been shown to have high internal consistency, with an average alpha of 0.81 across studies in different nations ( Schmitt & Allik, 2005 ). Cronbach’s alpha was .89 for the present sample. In addition, the scale has been found to be negatively correlated with anxiety and depression ( Torrey, Mueser, McHugo, & Drake, 2000 ) thus demonstrating construct validity.
Engagement, Perseverance, Optimism, Connectedness, and Happiness Measure of Adolescent Wellbeing (EPOCH)
The 20-item EPOCH was administered to adolescents to produce a total score of positive psychological functioning ranging from 20 to 100, with higher scores representing more positive functioning ( Kern, Benson, Steinberg, & Steinberg, 2016 ). Although this is a new measure and, as such, lacks a body of data on its psychometric properties, it was administered to assess positive functioning in adolescence as opposed to the absence of psychological problems. Test–retest reliability has been shown to be satisfactory across 3 weeks, ranging from .55 for Connectedness to .61 for Happiness, and internal consistency has been found to be high, ranging from .85 to .95 in different samples. For the present sample, Cronbach’s alpha was .89. EPOCH scores have been shown to be negatively correlated with measures of emotional distress and behavior problems indicating that the EPOCH is a valid measure of adolescent well-being.
Ratings of psychiatric disorder
The presence of adolescent psychiatric disorder was assessed during the interview with the mother using a standardized procedure ( Rutter, Cox, Tupling, Berger, & Yule, 1975 ). Detailed descriptions were obtained of any emotional or behavioral problems shown by the adolescent. These descriptions of actual behavior, which included information about where the behavior was shown, severity of the behavior, frequency, precipitants, and course of the behavior over the past year, were transcribed and rated by a child psychiatrist who was unaware of the nature of the study. A high level of reliability ( r = .85) between ratings made by social scientists and those made “blindly” by a child psychiatrist has been demonstrated for this procedure and validity has been established through a high level of agreement between interview ratings of children’s psychological problems and mothers’ assessments of whether or not their children had emotional or behavioral difficulties ( Rutter et al., 1975 ). Psychological problems, when identified, were rated according to severity on a 3-point scale ranging from 0 ( no disorder ) through 1 ( slight disorder ) to 2 ( marked disorder ) and type (emotional disorder, conduct disorder, mixed emotional and conduct disorder, developmental disorder, ADHD, psychotic disorder, or other disorder).
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