Depressive Symptoms of Chinese Rural-to-Urban Migrant Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Lixia Yan, Siyuan Wang, Yang Yuan, Yu Zhang and Junhua Zhang

SAGE Open, 2022, vol. 12, issue 4, 21582440221128177

Abstract: There are many contradictions in previous studies of the status of depressive symptoms among Chinese migrant children, the number of which in the compulsory education stage is about 13.9 million. This systematic review and meta-analysis were designed to compare depressive symptoms among migrant children and their urban children. Around 2,710 papers were retrieved from PubMed, OVID, the Web of Knowledge, CNKI, Wan Fang, Chongqing VIP, and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index on January 27, 2020. Thirty-Two studies met study criteria with 14,906 migrant children and 10,792 urban children. Migrant children scored significantly higher for depressive symptoms score (SMD = 0.307, 95% CI [0.222, 0.393]). Region significantly influenced the difference of depressive symptoms between migrant children and urban children. Large effect sizes came from studies using scales that focus on depressive mood while studies using scales that focus on depressive behavioural symptoms had small effect sizes. Future research should focus on treatments to decrease depressive mood of migrant children. Future studies can add information about the length of their current stay in the urban location to improve the quality of study. PROSPERO registry: Systematic review registration no. CRD42018090676.

Keywords: sociology of mental health; sociology of health and illness; sociology; social sciences; community and urban sociology; political sociology health psychology; applied psychology; psychology; social work; regional studies; sociology of population; depressive symptoms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:12:y:2022:i:4:p:21582440221128177

DOI: 10.1177/21582440221128177

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