Inhibited symptoms of Attachment Disorder in children from institutional and foster care samples

ABSTRACT

The main objective of the article was to study the prevalence of symptoms of the inhibited attachment disorder depending on type and quality of the caregiving environment. Analyses were based on data of a sample of institutionalized children from Georgia (N = 16), and two samples of foster children from Georgia (N = 27) and Germany (N = 55). Inhibited attachment disorder symptoms were assessed by the Disturbances of Attachment Interview (DAI) and the Rating of Inhibited Attachment Behavior (RInAB). Further assessments included behavior problems in children, quality of caregiving behavior in foster parents/caregivers, and presence of preferred caregiver in the institution. Regarding inhibited attachment behavior, expected differences between institutional (high scores) and foster samples (low scores) found for both measures (RInAB and DAI), and convergent validity between these measures was found in the institutional sample, but not in the foster samples. There were also indications of construct validity (regarding preferred caregiver in institution and caregiver supportive presence). The findings also suggest methodological issues brought about by skewed distributions of positive and negative measures in high-risk and low-risk samples, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Reactive Attachment Disorder
• inhibited attachment behavior
• institutional care
• foster care

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the Koehler-Stiftung, Germany (Grant number S 112/10161/12) who supported the organization of international workshops regarding assessment of inhibited attachment disorder. We wish to express our particular gratedtude to the participating institution, families and cargivers for their openness for this research and for their high committment to the study.

Disclosure statement

This is to acknowledge that there is not any financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of our research. The original study was approved by the Ethics Commission of the German Psychological Association (GS07200, 9/12/2009). Written informed consent was given by the foster parents and the caregivers of the institution. They were informed that their participation is voluntary and that they can withdraw from it any time, and that the data were fully anonymized and treated according to the data protection law.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the German Research Foundation [DFG; Grant numbers SP 312/19–1 and NO 891/1–1] and by the Rustaveli Foundation [Tbilisi, Georgia; Grant numbers YS/67/2–200/13 and DO/383/2–200/14].