The transition to grandparenthood: a prospective study of mental health implications

Abstract

Objectives: This study investigated the mental health of a cohort of 262 female and 168 male grandparents across the first two years of their transition to grandparenthood, with particular focus on the impact of providing childcare for the grandchild.

Method: Baseline assessments were made during the pregnancy with the first grandchild, and subsequent assessments were at one and two years after the birth. The influence of demographic and psychosocial variables which could be expected to influence change in mental health from baseline was explored.

Results: The lack of change in mental health measures in this cohort was more prominent than change. Specifically, there was a small significant decrease in anxiety over the first year for females, and a small significant increase in depression for males. Other variables, not unique to the transition to grandparenthood such as physical health and adverse life events, were strongly associated with changes in mental health. Notably, more time spent babysitting the grandchild was associated with improvement in mental health.

Conclusion: The transition to grandparenthood did not have any substantial adverse impact on five well-validated measures of mental health, in contrast to earlier American findings of adverse effects which implied that childcare was burdensome.

Keywords:

• Grandparents
• mental health
• life transition
• childcare

Disclosure statement

No financial benefits to the authors have arisen from this work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DP0664158], [grant number DP0986226].