Children's emotional and behavioural well-being and the family environment: findings from the Health Survey for England

Recent trends towards diversity in Family structure have posed important ch allenges for traditional social theories on the family. This critical debat e has not, however. had much influence on policy discussions of the impact of diverse Family structures on children's psychological health, where two- parent families are presumed ideal. In 1997, the annual Health Survey for E ngland focussed on the health of children and young people. The Strengths a nd Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), used to assess children's psychologica l health, was administered to the parents of 5705 children aged 4-15 using a self-completion booklet. The effect of family structure, socio-economic i ndicators, parental working status and parental psychological status on chi ldren-a psychological health was explored using multi-variate logistic regr ession models. Findings indicated that the high prevalence of psychological morbidity amon g children of lone-mothers was a consequence of socio-economic effects, dis appearing when benefits receipt, housing tenure and maternal education were taken into account. Socio-economic factors did not, however, explain the h igher proportion of psychological morbidity among children with stepparents , or the strong relationship between parents' and children's psychological morbidity. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.