Early Childhood Nonparental Childcare Attendance Does Not Influence Mental Health

MONDAY, Jan. 6, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Childcare attendance does not positively or negatively influence child mental health, according to a study published online Dec. 10 in Development and Psychopathology.

Michelle Bosquet Enlow, Ph.D., from Boston Children”s Hospital, and colleagues used data from the National Institutes of Health Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Program to test whether the number of hours in childcare is associated with child mental health in a sample of 2,024 parent-child dyads.

The researchers found that childcare participation was not associated with mental health outcomes in linear regression models, nor was there an impact for childcare attendance on associations between risk exposures and symptoms. Interactive effects of psychosocial and socioeconomic risks at ages 0 to 3 years were seen for internalizing and externalizing symptoms at ages 3 to 5.5 years.

“Although participation in childcare did not buffer the negative effects of adversity on child mental health, it also did not exacerbate such effects. Further, there was no evidence that childcare attendance was positively or negatively associated with child mental health outcomes generally,” the authors write. “Future work should continue to pursue this line of research, including examining the role of childcare on child mental health in families with a greater range of adversity exposures and exploring the influence of childcare quality indicators on disrupting the negative effects of early adversity on child mental health.”

Abstract/Full Text