Cohort profile: the Dynamics of Family Conflict (FamC) study in Norway

Abstract

Purpose: The Dynamics of Family Conflict (FamC) prospective cohort study was set up to investigate how and why interparental conflicts and family relations develop over time, and in which contexts which types of conflicts and relations are most negative for which children. FamC focuses on the family within a scope spanning macrolevel as well as microlevel processes.

Participants: Families were recruited from MoBa (pilot project) and family counselling offices across Norway when parents attended parental counselling, therapy or mandatory mediation in relation to parental relationship dissolution. All families were thus experiencing challenges and/or going through a family transition. Families were eligible for the study if parents had at least one joint child between 0 and 16 years. Both parents and up to five children from the same family could participate. A total of 2871 families were recruited (participation rate wave 1: 78%) and an estimated 55% of parents (based on wave 1 data) were divorced/separated. Additional data were obtained from therapists/mediators at the family counselling offices about the family, and childcare or schoolteachers provided data on the youngest (0-6 years) children.

Findings to date: Results show that interparental conflict patterns vary with family constellation. Interparental conflict severity is inversely related to the discrepancy between child-reported and parent-reported child reactions to interparental conflicts, and child-self-reported reactions are higher relative to parent-reported child reactions. Other findings show that family characteristics (eg, the number and age of children in the family and financial difficulties) are predictive of the type of residence arrangement that parents practice.

Future plans: The cohort is ideally suited for cross-cultural comparisons and further examination of family processes and dynamics including parent repartnering, step-parents and new family members, associations between different family constellations and child adjustment, and fathering, father-child relationship and child adjustment. There are plans for further follow-up data collection.

Keywords: Child & adolescent psychiatry; MENTAL HEALTH; PUBLIC HEALTH.

Figure 1. Overview of data collection waves.

Figure 2. Family participation in each data collection wave. Families participating in W1 and all new included families at W2–W6 add to 3401 families. This exceeds the number of families recruited to the study (n=2871) because some families are counted more than once when adding up ‘new included families’. New included families in each wave (eg, W4) are those families that did not participate in the previous wave (ie, W3). These families may not have participated up until this point, or they may have participated in earlier waves but not in the one immediately preceding the current wave. By family participation, we mean that any family member answered the questionnaire.

Figure 3. Number of waves participated in by families, mothers, fathers and children.