Parental death associated with poor school performance
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Childhood parental death is associated with poorer school performance, and those who experience this loss may benefit from support that could prevent future adverse outcomes, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
“Losing a parent in childhood is highly stressful,” Can Liu, MD, PhD, of the department of public health sciences at Stockholm University, and colleagues wrote. “Some bereaved children may develop complicated grief and posttraumatic stress, low stress resilience, long-lasting depressive symptoms, a sense of meaninglessness and high-risk behaviors leading to lower educational aspiration and achievement.”
Liu and colleagues sought to determine if the death of a parent is associated with poor academic outcomes, independent of unique familial factors, and to ascertain whether children of certain ages are vulnerable when parental death occurs.
The study utilized information from the Swedish national register between Jan. 1, 1990,, and Dec. 31, 2016, which included 908,064 children born in Sweden between 1991 and 2000 and who lived in the country before turning 17 years of age.
Principal outcome for investigation was mean school grades (year-specific z scores) and ineligibility for upper secondary education on finishing compulsory school at age 15 to 16 years.
Analyses were also conducted to determine associations between parental death and school outcomes, as well as comparisons between children who experienced parental death before completing compulsory school and those who experienced it after compulsory school completion.
Results showed that bereaved children (22,634 total; 11,553 male; mean age 21 years) registered lower mean school grade z scores (adjusted beta coefficient, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.21 to 0.18) and carried a higher risk of ineligibility for upper secondary education than nonbereaved children (adjusted RR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.32-1.41). Data also revealed that, independent of sibling birth order, losing a parent at a younger age was associated with lower grades within a family.
“Children who have lost parents may benefit from additional educational support in school,” Liu and colleagues wrote. “Further research is needed to better understand the factors that mediate the association to appropriately support the children at risk for school challenges.”