Underrepresented Caregivers in Research on Prenatal Alcohol Exposure: A Meta-Analysis and Scoping Review

Objectives

Families of children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) are diverse, raising children through birth, adoption, or fostering, including kinship care. Research has shown that caregivers of children with PAE often experience unique difficulties with parenting, which may differ across types of caregivers. Understanding the range of needs of these families is critical for program development; therefore, it is important to know which caregivers are represented in this research and how.

Methods

The current meta-analysis and scoping review examined the demographic characteristics of caregivers and children included in quantitative PAE caregiver-related research. Systematic database searches using key terms led to the inclusion of 15 relevant studies involving 593 participants in total.

Results

Most caregivers in the studies were adoptive parents, female, middled-aged, White, partnered, had obtained a high school education or higher, and resided in the United States. Most studies included caregivers of school-aged children diagnosed with FASD. Most studies recruited participants through pre-established lists and databases, collected data in person and for research purposes, and studied parenting stress. Attempts to study differences in representation based on research methods were unsuccessful due to a lack of differences within the literature.

Conclusions

The results of this study suggest that (a) non-adoptive parents, (b) caregivers who were male, non-White, non-partnered, less educated, and living outside of the United States, and (c) caregivers of adolescents, and caregivers raising children with PAE who have not received an FASD diagnosis are currently underrepresented in the research; however, this literature is limited and requires further research.