Family beyond parents? An exploration of family configurations and psychological adjustment in young adults with intellectual disabilities

Family social capital and health – a systematic review and redirection

“…(), and Widmer et al . () draw upon network analyses and delve deeper into the study of family ties, also considering dimensions such as density (the number of connections within the network) and centrality (the proportion of connections within the network for which respondent is an intermediary). Concerning the set of papers studying family networks in adults, both the density and diversity of family ties appear to have a positive effect on health.…”

“…), to others even attempting to differentiate between the structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital or bonding, bridging and linking relationships within the family (Gonsalves , Widmer et al . ). In short, we can say that the approach described begs two questions: (i) how is ‘social capital’ conceptualised?…”

“…Family social capital in the health literature From the review of the papers in our sample, it can be learnt that family social capital in the health literature has been mostly operationalised by adapting the concept of social capital to fit the boundaries of family. The depth of the analyses varies, from some authors using simple indicators such as the frequency of parents playing games with their children (Berntsson et al 2007), to others even attempting to differentiate between the structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital or bonding, bridging and linking relationships within the family (Gonsalves 2007, Widmer et al 2013. In short, we can say that the approach described begs two questions: (i) how is 'social capital' conceptualised?…”

“…In our sample, the study by Widmer et al (2013) provides one of the few examples in which a thorough assessment of the family network was actually conducted. In their research, they applied the family network method, a specific sort of name generator.…”

“…Wu et al (2010) and Rothon et al (2012) conceptualised informal control as 'parental surveillance or monitoring' using measures such as the frequency that parents know teenagers are going out in the evening, whether teenagers were allowed to go out with friends parents do not know, and the frequency parents checked teenagers' homework. In both cases, an association was found between high levels of parental surveillance and Widmer et al (2013) lower odds of poor mental health and depressive symptoms. In the study by Furstenberg and Hughes (1995), the specific relationship between their measure of informal control and mental health is not described, but their results suggest that family social capital is indeed associated with more robust mental health in adulthood.…”