Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review最新文献

Emotional and behavioural problems (EBP) are prevalent amongst children, and guided, parent-led digital interventions offer one method of improving access to effective treatments. This systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD42023484098) aimed to examine the evidence base for, and characteristics of, these types of interventions through a narrative synthesis. Systematic searches were conducted using Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Science in January 2024 and February 2025, supplemented with hand searching in March/April 2024 and February 2025. Studies were eligible if they reported outcomes related to preadolescent EBP from a guided, fully parent-led, fully digital intervention. Thirteen studies were eligible, including 2643 children and covering eight interventions (addressing anxiety problems, comorbid anxiety and depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder and disruptive behaviour). Studies included randomised controlled trials and pre-post studies. The QualSyst checklist was used to assess study quality; all studies were rated as good quality. All studies showed statistically significant improvements in the child’s symptoms or interference levels, with small to very large effect sizes immediately post-treatment, and at least medium effect sizes by follow-up, suggesting a promising evidence base. A wide range of intervention characteristics were identified, forming a basis for future intervention development for childhood EBP. However, there was a lack of consistency in how information was reported across studies (such as completion rates) and studies lacked information on parent demographics and key intervention details. Further high quality randomised controlled trials for a wider range of EBP are needed to continue building the evidence base.

Most children under age 5 exceed recommended screen time guidelines, with lifelong implications for children’s psychosocial, cognitive, socio-emotional, and physiological outcomes. Socio-ecological models point towards the important contribution of parental knowledge, modelling, practices, self-efficacy and style on child screen use. This study aimed to determine the extent to which these parenting factors influence child screen use, as well as the moderating role of screen media type (i.e. fixed vs. portable) on the relationship between parenting factors and child screen use. A systematic literature search for peer-reviewed studies published in English from 1982 to 2023 was conducted and yielded 87 eligible studies. Greater parental modelling, mealtime viewing, and the use of screens as a babysitting, mood regulation or reinforcement tool, were associated with higher child screen use. Contrastingly, higher levels of parental self-efficacy, and the implementation of screen use rules were associated with lower child screen use. Interventions targeting these parenting factors pose as a promising avenue to reduce child screen use. An authoritative parenting style was associated with lower child screen use, while authoritarian and permissive styles were associated with higher child screen use. The evidence for parental knowledge and co-viewing and, a neglectful parenting style was inconsistent or inconclusive. Finally, no observable trends or patterns in the data regarding the role of screen media type emerged. Future research should look to address issues in the measurement of child screen use to ensure comprehensive and objective assessments.

The development of secure relationships between children and their adult carers, across the earliest years of life, emerges within a multifaceted and complex relational ecology. Here we present findings from a systematic scoping review designed to map the extent to which the relational ecology of child-caregiver relationships across early life (from conception to age 3 years) has been studied. A first phase of the review searched for studies that used applied social network analysis (SNA) to measure the relational ecology. A second phase extended the scope to studies of associations between individual elements of the relational ecology and the early child-caregiver relationship. Searches were conducted between February and September, 2023, rerun in March 2025and in total, yielded 11,226 articles for screening. We found no studies using SNA to investigate the relational ecology of early child-caregiver relationship development. We did, however, find 122 studies that examined individual predictors across the relational ecosystem of the early child-caregiver relationship. Most studies focused on the family microsystem and in particular the mother–child relationship. Few studies examined other aspects of the microsystem, or higher levels of the relational ecosystem (meso-, exo- or macrosystems). Our findings highlight that much of the broader relational ecology of early child relational health development continues to be neglected in observational research. Future research should consider using novel methods like SNA to capture and explain interconnections between relationships at all levels of the relational ecology of early child-caregiver relationship development.

This article examined the internet and social media usage among (young) individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two meta-analyses were conducted to quantify (1) the relation between ASD/autistic traits and problematic internet use (PIU, which included generalized PIU, problematic gaming, excessive smartphone use), and (2) the relation between ASD/autistic traits and social media use. The results of our first meta-analysis—comprising 46 studies and 42,274 participants—revealed that people with ASD or higher levels of autistic traits showed higher levels of PIU, with an average effect size of r = 0.26 (95% CI [0.21, 0.31]). The second meta-analysis—consisting of 15 studies and 7036 participants—indicated that people with ASD or higher levels of autistic traits were less involved on social media platforms as compared to their typically developing counterparts, with the average effect size being r = − 0.28 (95% CI [− 0.38, − 0.18]). The quality of the research on PIU and social media in persons with ASD was critically evaluated and possible directions for future research on this topic are discussed.

Parental psychosis has been reliably associated with adverse outcomes for both parents and children. Despite this, support for these families remains limited. Understanding the everyday parenting practices of parents with psychosis, and whether they differ from parents without psychosis is crucial for developing suitable, evidence-based interventions. We therefore aimed to synthesise quantitative and qualitative research to answer two research questions: (1) ‘What are the parenting practices of parents who experience psychosis?’ and (2) ‘Are the parenting practices of parents who experience psychosis the same as the parenting practices of parents without serious mental illness (SMI)?’ Five databases were searched for terms associated with parenting, psychosis and parenting practices, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used for quality appraisal prior to an integrative narrative synthesis being conducted. Twelve studies (n = 9 quantitative; n = 3 qualitative) containing 1115 parents with psychosis were included. The synthesis revealed that parents with psychosis frequently use positive authoritative parenting strategies, but sometimes this can be difficult to sustain, with parents resorting to permissive and inconsistent parenting practices. They appear to do so more frequently than parents without SMI but because only four studies utilised a control group, more comparative research is needed. The review recommends further support, and use of parenting interventions for parents with psychosis, alongside systemic practice change initiatives within adult mental health services.

It is well established within the literature that early childhood trauma and maltreatment increase risk for adolescent offending behaviors. However, the mechanisms underlying this association are not currently well understood. The construct of moral injury, or distress and psychopathology stemming from events that violate an individual’s deeply held moral beliefs, has most frequently been studied in adult veterans. However, researchers have recently begun to apply the concept of moral injury to child and adolescent populations. From a developmental psychopathology perspective, moral injury offers a novel lens through which to view the victim–offender overlap in adolescents. The current paper reviews existing empirical evidence regarding the prevalence and sources of moral injury in justice-involved youth. It further synthesizes theory and research from diverse subfields of developmental and clinical psychology and criminology in order to describe how disruptions to cognitive, affective, and social development might link moral injury with juvenile offending and justice involvement. A novel, dynamic model of moral injury and juvenile offending is proposed, and implications for future research, clinical practice, and juvenile justice policy are discussed.

Although anxiety sensitivity (AS), or the fear of anxiety-related symptoms, has been identified as a risk factor for the development of anxiety psychopathology, the pathways through which this fear is learned have not been fully elucidated. In the current review and meta-analysis, we aimed to systematically examine the association between parent-to-child fear learning pathways (vicarious learning, negative information, reinforcement, and punishment) and AS. A comprehensive search of literature was conducted in PsychINFO, PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases, using search terms combining categories related to fear learning pathways, anxiety-related symptoms, parents, children, and adolescents. Based on this search strategy, 28 studies were identified as relevant, of which 11 were included in the systematic review and 10 in the meta-analysis. The overall findings indicated that parent-to-child fear learning pathways are significantly associated with AS. The meta-analysis demonstrated a small but significant association between fear learning pathways and AS, although the type of fear learning pathway did not significantly moderate this relationship. However, age emerged as a significant moderator, suggesting a stronger association in children and adolescents compared to adults. Given that these findings are primarily based on cross-sectional studies, this review underscores the need for longitudinal and experimental research to further clarify the role of parent-to-child fear learning pathways in anxiety sensitivity. Additionally, a better understanding of these pathways may help inform existing interventions and fear prevention strategies, such as those aimed at reducing parental modeling of fearful behaviors or promoting positive verbal messages about anxiety symptoms.

Systematic and meta-analytic reviews provide gold-standard evidence but are static and outdate quickly. Here we provide performance data on a new software platform, LitQuest, that uses artificial intelligence technologies to (1) accelerate screening of titles and abstracts from library literature searches, and (2) provide a software solution for enabling living systematic reviews by maintaining a saved AI algorithm for updated searches. Performance testing was based on LitQuest data from seven systematic reviews. LitQuest efficiency was estimated as the proportion (%) of the total yield of an initial literature search (titles/abstracts) that needed human screening prior to reaching the in-built stop threshold. LitQuest algorithm performance was measured as work saved over sampling (WSS) for a certain recall. LitQuest accuracy was estimated as the proportion of incorrectly classified papers in the rejected pool, as determined by two independent human raters. On average, around 36% of the total yield of a literature search needed to be human screened prior to reaching the stop-point. However, this ranged from 22 to 53% depending on the complexity of language structure across papers included in specific reviews. Accuracy was 99% at an interrater reliability of 95%, and 0% of titles/abstracts were incorrectly assigned. Findings suggest that LitQuest can be a cost-effective and time-efficient solution to supporting living systematic reviews, particularly for rapidly developing areas of science. Further development of LitQuest is planned, including facilitated full-text data extraction and community-of-practice access to living systematic review findings.

Early life adversity (ELA) describes stressful experiences that may increase risk for psychopathology and impact emotion regulation and executive functioning systems. The influence of ELA on the development of empathy—the ability to understand and resonate with others’ thoughts and emotions—remains understudied, despite the fact that empathy development relies on cognitive and emotional abilities often affected by ELA. This scoping review summarized 43 empirical articles on ELA and empathy to clarify the muddled literature and address limitations to inform future research. Across various operationalizations of ELA and empathy, 15 articles suggested that ELA was associated with increased empathy, 19 that ELA was associated with decreased empathy, and 12 pointed to a null association. ELA and empathy showed differing associations across developmental periods, with ELA being more related to higher affective empathy and lower cognitive empathy in youth and higher personal distress in adulthood. Categorization by type of adversity revealed a lack of studies on deprivation and environmental adversity, while examination of empathy operationalization revealed a need for the assessment of empathy components among youth and more task-based measures of empathy. Recommendations for future research include the need to (a) clarify operationalizations of ELA, (b) explore empathy components and naturalistic measures, and (c) focus on outcomes in adolescence. Continued efforts to understand the connection between ELA and empathy will provide valuable insight into the impact of adversity on socioemotional development and guide psychosocial interventions for individuals at risk for maladaptive outcomes following adverse childhood experiences.

The current meta-analysis aims to investigate the relationship between parental stress and well-being, by focusing on the positive dimensions of parental well-being, such as happiness and life satisfaction, which are often overlooked in favor of negative outcomes like depression. It also extends the scope beyond specific populations, such as parents of children with special needs, to include parents of typically developing children. This meta-analysis included evidence from cross-sectional, longitudinal, daily diary, and intervention studies. By examining various moderators related to parent and child variables (such as gender, age, job status) and study characteristics, this analysis aims to inform more effective, targeted interventions to enhance parental well-being. Systematic searches of the Web of Science, PubMed, APA PsychNet, Scopus, ProQuest, and Google Scholar databases yielded 86 studies, involving 22,108 parents of children aged 0 to 18 years. The PROSPERO registration number for this study is CRD42023428750. Elected outcomes were continuous self-report measures to assess stress and well-being of parents. Our findings indicated a significant negative medium-sized association between parental stress and well-being (r = − .40), i.e., greater parental stress was robustly linked to reduced well-being. Higher-quality studies reported stronger stress-well-being associations, underscoring the role of methodological rigor in producing reliable estimates. Additionally, studies utilizing the Parental Stress Index (PSI) demonstrated stronger associations, highlighting its utility as a validated measure for capturing parental stress. Overall, these findings emphasize the need for evidence-based prevention and intervention programs to address parental stress and improve well-being.