Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

In order to study internationally adopted delinquents, internationally adopted controls, delinquent controls and an additional group of healthy non-adopted, non-delinquent controls, the following tests were used: WISC/WAIS, TOL, WCST, a questionnaire, I think I am, ISSI, an attachment test, KSP, and SCL-90. In the register study, data were obtained from the registers of The National Board of Health and Welfare and Statistics Sweden and multivariate analyses were performed using logistic regression models. Odds ratios (OR) for different forms of out-of-home care placements were calculated.

It was found that the adopted delinquents had a significantly lower full scale IQ (WISC/WAIS) and significantly lower results on several measurements in the WISC /WAIS compared to the adopted controls. In addition, both groups of adoptees scored low in the WISC/WAIS subscale arithmetics when compared to the population mean. The adopted delinquents clearly had disruptive and infectious relations to their parents which was demonstrated in I think I am, ISSI, the attachment test and the questionnaire. The adopted controls demonstrated good relations to adoptive parents. When personality and self-perception were measured and analyzed in a two-way ANOVA, the results clearly pointed to ”delinquency” as the explaining factor to the variance of the results as opposed to ”adoption”.

Finally, the regression analyses of the register data demonstrated an OR of 3.0 (after adjustments for age and sex) for placements of intercountry adoptees in residental care from age 10 and an OR of 5.1 in model 2 (after adjustments for socio-demographic background variables). More over, higher child age at adoption, origin from Latin America, single parent adoption and maternal age above 35 at birth of the child were identified as significant predictors of out-of-home care from age 10.