Peer-reviewed article
Impact of maternal common mental disorders on child educational outcomes at 7 and 9 years: a population-based cohort study in Ethiopia
Habtamu Mekonnen, Girmay Medhin, Mark Tomlinson, Atalay Alem, Martin James Prince et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This cohort study in rural Ethiopia followed 2,090 mother-child pairs to examine whether maternal mental health problems affect children's schooling. Children whose mothers had common mental disorders at ages 7-8 years were more likely to drop out of school and be absent, but there was no difference in academic achievement. The study suggests that improving maternal mental health may help reduce school dropout and absenteeism among children.
Key points
- Maternal common mental disorders at ages 7-8 years were associated with a 7% increase in odds of school dropout by age 8-9 years
- Maternal common mental disorders were also associated with higher child absenteeism, measured as a 1% increase in incidence rate ratio
- No association was found between maternal mental disorders and child academic achievement scores
- The study included 2,090 mother-child dyads from a rural health and demographic surveillance site in south central Ethiopia
- Outcomes were measured using school records at age 8-9 years, considered more reliable than maternal report
Limitations
The study cannot establish causation, only association, and cannot rule out unmeasured confounders. The findings are specific to a rural Ethiopian population and may not generalise to other settings or urban areas.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To examine the association between exposure to maternal common mental disorders (CMD) in preschool and early school age children and subsequent child educational outcomes. DESIGN: A population-based cohort study. SETTING: The study was undertaken in the Butajira health and demographic surveillance site (HDSS), a predominantly rural area of south central Ethiopia. PARTICIPANTS: Inclusion criteria are women aged between 15 and 49 years, able to speak Amharic, in the third trimester of pregnancy and resident of the HDSS. 1065 women were recruited between July 2005 and February 2006 and followed up. When the average age of children was 6.5 years old, the cohort was expanded to include an additional 1345 mothers and children who had been born in the 12 months preceding and following the recruitment of the original cohort, identified from the HDSS records. Data from a total of 2090 mother-child dyads were included in the current analysis. MEASURES: Maternal CMD was measured when the children were 6-7 (6/7) and 7-8 (7/8) years old using the Self-reporting Questionnaire, validated for the setting. Educational outcomes (dropout) of the children at aged 7/8 years (end of 2013/2014 academic year) were obtained from maternal report. At age 8/9 years (end of 2014/2015 academic year), educational outcomes (academic achievement, absenteeism and dropout) of the children were obtained from school records. RESULTS: After adjusting for potential confounders, exposure to maternal CMD at 7/8 years was associated significantly with school dropout (OR 1.07; 95% CI 1.00 to 1.13, P=0.043) and absenteeism (incidence rate ratio 1.01; 95% CI 1.00 to 1.02 P=0.026) at the end of 2014/2015 academic year. There was no association between maternal CMD and child academic achievement. CONCLUSION: Future studies are needed to evaluate whether interventions to improve maternal mental health can reduce child school absenteeism and dropout.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Potential interventions to improve maternal mental health (proposed but not yet evaluated in this study)
- Population
- Children aged 7-9 years in rural Ethiopia whose mothers had common mental disorders
Key finding
Maternal CMD at 7-8 years associated with school dropout: OR 1.07 (95% CI 1.00-1.13, P=0.043)