Emotional health of Indonesian adoptees living in Australian families

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To compare the prevalence of emotional and behavioural problems in adolescent adoptees from Indonesia living in South Australian families with that of adolescents living in the community and those referred to mental health clinics in South Australia. METHOD: Thirty-four Indonesian adoptees completed the Youth Self-Report and their adoptive mothers completed the Child Behaviour Checklist. The results on these instruments were compared with the scores of a community sample and a mental health clinic population. RESULTS: There was a striking similarity between scores on the Youth Self-Report and the Child Behaviour Checklist instruments for the adoption and community groups. Both these groups had significantly fewer problems than adolescents referred to mental health clinics. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that the outcome in terms of emotional and behavioural health for intercountry adoptions between Indonesia and Australia is favourable.