Mirja Helen Hemmi (1), Dieter Wolke (2), Silvia Schneider (3)

1) SwissEtiological Study of Adjustment and Mental Health (sesam), Institute of Psychology, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
2) Department of Psychology and Health Sciences Research Institute, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Warwick, UK
3) Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psycho!ogy Institute of Psychology, University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany

Background

Excessive crying, sleeping or feeding problems are found in approximately 20% of infants and may predict behavioural problems in childhood.

Methods

A quantitative meta-analysis of 22 longi­ tudinal studies from 1987 to 2006 that statistically tested the association between infant regulatory problems and childhood internalising, externalising and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) prob­ lems was carried out; 1935 children with regulatory problems were tested. Cohen's d was used to express the association between regulatory problems and behavioural problems. Heterogeneity of the effect sizes was assessed using the 12 statistic and meta-analysis of variance and meta-regressions were conducted to assess the influence of moderators. Rosenthal's classic fail-safe N and correlation of sample sizes to effect sizes were used to assess publication bias.

Results

The weighted mean effect size for the main regulatory problems-behavioural problems association was 0.41 (95% Cl 0.28 to 0.54), indicating that children with previous regulatory problems have more behav­ ioural problems than controls. Externalising and ADHD problems were the strongest outcome of any regulatory problem, indicated by the highest fail-safe N and lowest correlation of sample size to effect size. Meta-analyses of variance revealed no significant moderating influences of regulatory problem comorbidity 11'=44.0, p>0.051, type (12=41.8,p>0.05) or duration (12=44.0,p>D.05). However, cumulative problems and clinical referral increased the risk of behavioural problems.
Conclusions The meta-analyses suggest that children with previous regulatory problems have more behavioural problems than controls, particularly in multi-problem families. Further studies are required to assess the behavioural outcomes of previously sleep, feeding or multiply disturbed children.