Welsh, J. A., Viana, A. G., Petrill, S. A., & Mathias, M. D. (2008). Ready to adopt: Characteristics and expectations of preadoptive families pursuing international adoptions. Adoption Quarterly, 11, 176 - 203.


Background on the Study
Many studies of adoptive parents and adoption outcomes are done after the adoptions are completed. There is little to no research on preadoptive parents. This study seeks to begin filling in that gap by studying preadoptive parents. It had two goals: (1) to describe the characteristics, perceptions and attitudes of preadoptive parents and (2) to examine how preadoption preparation influences parents’ expectations.

The study focused on factors related to adoption outcomes that have been found to be important in later child and family adjustment. These included parents’: psychological functioning, social support networks, motivations for adoption, preparation for adoption, and expectations about their adopted children.

The researchers expected to find that while families would overall have positive (and even idealized) expectations for their adopted children, these expectations would be tempered by preadoption education and by information they received about the child’s background and needs during the referral process. In regard to preadoption education, the researchers thought that families who had received more preadoption education would expect more adjustment difficulties in their children.


Methods
The study surveyed 256 prospective adoptive parents in the United States. The parents were mostly recruited through six adoption agencies; a small percentage were recruited through internet forums for adoptive families. Families who had accepted the referral of a child but not yet met the child were allowed to participate.

The survey measured parents’ psychological functioning in four areas: anxiety, depression, somatization and hostility. Social support included things like having logistical support or emotional support from friends and/or family members. Parents were also asked about their satisfaction with the community in which they live. In regard to the adoption, parents answered questions about their reasons for adopting, reasons for choosing the adoption agency and satisfaction with the agency, the types of preadoption education activities they had participated in and how helpful they thought each activity was, the reasons for choosing a specific country to adopt from, information they had received regarding the child referred to them, any special needs the child was known to have, and their expectations for how they though they child would adapt after the adoption.


Main Findings
The questions about parents’ expectations were divided into three categories: positive expectations, expectations of mild problems, and expectations of serious problems. While the researchers expected that parents would generally have positive expectations, the expectations were extremely high with almost all parents (94%) reporting that they “agree” or “strongly agree” with the positive expectations (for example, “I expect my child will bond with me fairly quickly”). However, this is not to say that the parents did not anticipate some difficulties as an equal percentage of parents (94%) indicated that they expected at least some mild problems (the most common being temporary sleeping and eating problems).  Only 9.5% of parents expected serious problems.

Surprisingly, the amount of preadoption education was not related with expectations. Neither the amount or type of preparation was related with any of the expectation categories.

There were some other characteristics that related to parental expectations. The researchers did thorough statistical analyses. What is highlighted here are the most sophisticated of the analyses as these represent a better picture of the way parents weigh different factors and how the influence of different factors can interact.

Positive Expectations were related with:
- child being younger
- parents having more social support

Expectations of Mild Problems were related with:
- child being from China or Eastern Europe

Expectations of Serious Problems were related with:
- child being older
- child having diagnosed medical needs

There were other factors that in the simpler analyses were found to be related, but those relationships disappeared when the different factors were looked at together in the more sophisticated analyses.


Future Research
The researchers plan to do follow-up with these same families to explore how their preadoptive expectations relate to what actually occurs post-adoption. They will also be studying how these different characteristics they measured in this study relate to parent and child adaptation post adoption.