Adverse health in parents of children with disabilities and chronic health conditions: a meta-analysis using the parenting stress index's health sub-domain.
Parents of kids with DD or chronic health conditions show poorer physical health—build routine health screening and referrals into your treatment plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers pooled every paper that used the Parenting Stress Index health sub-scale. They compared parents of kids with developmental disabilities or chronic health conditions to other parents.
The meta-analysis covered mixed ages and diagnoses. The goal was to see if caregiving itself hurts physical health.
What they found
Caregivers scored consistently worse on the PSI-Health scale. The effect was small-to-medium across all studies.
How this fits with other research
Yamaoka et al. (2022) extends the finding to school-age kids. They weighed mothers and found higher BMI and poorer mental health in special-education families. The 2015 meta-analysis and the 2022 study line up: caregiver health is at risk.
Magaña et al. (2008) narrows the lens to older Black and Latina mothers. They show the same poor health plus extra barriers to care. The meta-analysis gives the big picture; Sandy adds the ethnicity-specific detail.
Wu et al. (2025) looks at mental health, not physical health. High parenting stress still predicts worse outcomes, but family support and optimism can buffer the hit. Together the papers say: screen both body and mind.
Why it matters
Add one quick health question to every parent meeting. “How has your own health been?” If the answer is shaky, hand over a referral list for primary care or respite services. Five extra minutes can keep the whole family in therapy longer.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Compared with parents of same-aged children without disabilities, parents of children with disabilities and with chronic health conditions (CHC) show higher levels of stress and depression. Fewer studies, however, examine the physical health of these parents, and studies report mixed findings. Many studies, however, report mother's self-reported health using the Health Sub-domain of Abidin's Parenting Stress Index (PSI). We therefore conducted a meta-analysis comparing the physical health of parents of children with developmental disabilities (DD) and CHC vs. parents of children without DD/CHC in studies utilising this measure. METHODS: Eligible studies used the long form of the PSI and reported results from the 5-item Health sub-domain. Group comparison effect sizes were synthesised in a meta-analysis, and we also examined the potential relations of child, parent, and study characteristics. Our search yielded 19 eligible studies. RESULTS: Compared with parents of children without DD/CHC, parents of children with DD/CHC reported higher PSI health problem scores, with a weighted mean effect size of 0.39 (95% CI = 0.23-0.55). Effect sizes ranged from -0.13 to 1.46 and there was evidence of heterogeneity in the effect sizes (τ2 = 0.07; Q18 = 48.64, P < 0.01; I2 = 63.0%). Studies with higher numbers of reporting quality indicators generally reported larger effects and more recent studies showed smaller effects. Although several child and parent characteristics were moderately associated with effect sizes, none reached statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS: Practitioners should be alerted to the need for health prevention and treatment in this at-risk parent group.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2015 · doi:10.1111/jir.12135