BhutanUU22 - Determinants of early childhood development in Bhutan.
Creators: name: Nyström, Pär
name: Sen, Umay
name: Gredebäck, Gustaf
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Child Psychology
subject: Health Psychology
subject: Developmental Psychology
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences

description: Primary care giver mental health and child development in Bhutan, a study of risk and protective factors. INTRODUCTION Recent work demonstrates that maternal mental health impacts infants and children’s cognitive development. This relation has been demonstrated for Swedish families in relation to gaze following (Astor et al., 2020) and attention (Juvrud et al., 2021), for Bhutanese infants in relation to attention (Juvrud et al., 2022), and for Syrian refugee children living in Turkey in relation to social perception (Gredebäck et al., 2021). When comparing across cultures it appears as if infants are less impacted by maternal mental health problems than Swedish infants (Astor et al., in press). In this study we would like to better understand the risk and protective factors in the Bhutanese society and among Bhutanese parents that buffer against this effect, that protect against this generation transfer from parents to children. TIMELINE Data was collected May 16 – July 31, 2022. Visual inspection of data quality (histograms of variables) was assessed under August 2022. Pre-registration was performed by the research team on September 9, 2022 in Thimphu, Bhutan. No analysis or correlations were performed up to this point. REFERENCE Numbers after variables indicate item number is document Variable_list. VARIABLES OF INTEREST Child Development: Cognitive development of children aged between 3 and 5 is measured by SON-R (2-8), overall score, that is a non-verbal intelligence test. Primary caregiver mental health: Mental health (h_1_i), average of variables. Primary caregiver experiences of negative emotions: Experiences of negative emotions (h_2_1 to h_2_6), average of variables. RISK/PROTECTIVE FACTORS Socioeconomic status is calculated by creating an average of zscores for income (household income divided by total number of household members [ zscore(b_1_20 / (b_1_18 + b_1_19))] and average education of parents [zscore((b_1_15 + b_1_16)/2)]. Religious practices are assessed using the institutionalized religious practices subscale (i_1_i) of the spirituality questionnaire. Calculated as an average of items (i_1_1 – i_1_5). Religious values are assessed using the religious valudes subscale (i_2_i) of the spirituality questionnaire. Calculated as an average of items (i_2_1 – i_2_10). Sense of belonging are assessed using the sense of belonging and trust scale (j_1_i) of the spirituality questionnaire. Calculated as an average of items (j_1_1 – j_1_3). Ethnicity (b_1_8) is a categorical variable with four levels. SAMPLE The sample will include all families where the primary care giver is interviewed (b_1_7). Children with a very low birth weight (below 1,5 kilo) will be removed. ANALYSIS PLAN A series of general linear models will be used to answer the research questions. For each step predictors that have a p-value above .1 in the prior analysis will be removed in order to facilitate simplicity and to avoid model overloading. Model 1-3 will only assess main effects. Model 1 include primary caregiver mental health and primary caregiver experiences of negative emotions, age (b_2_2) and gender (b_2_1) as independent variables and child development (SON-R) as the dependent variable. Model 2 includes, in addition, socioeconomic status, religious practices, sense of belonging and religious values as independent variables. Model 3 includes, in addition, ethnicity. Model 4 will also include interaction effects for all remaining variables.