Mental disorders in foster children: a study of prevalence, comorbidity and risk factors

Table 1 Characteristics of foster children with both DAWBA and municipal care history information (n = 219)

	%	Mean	SD
Age (years)		8.97	2.04
Female gender	47.0
Former placements		0.90	0.85
0	32.0
1	52.2
2	12.5
3-5	3.1
Age at first placement		3.74	2.98
0–6 months	16.0
7 months–2 years	26.0
3–5 years	28.8
6–12 years	29.2
Years in current foster home		5.08	3.06
0-2	23.5
3-5	25.3
6-7	25.3
8-12	25.8
Number of adverse childhood experiences¹		3.00	1.60
Violence exposure (range 0–4)²		0.71	1.14
0	64.1
1-2	26.2
3-4	9.7
Serious neglect	86.3
Parent`s drug/alcohol abuse	55.3
Parent`s mental disorder	52.3
Parent`s mental disability	9.6

¹Experiences in family of origin; ²Violence exposure = the sum of witnessing domestic violence; exposure to physical violence; exposure to emotional abuse; witnessing emotional abuse.

ISSN: 1753-2000