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We started a longitudinal study among 72 families who together adopted a total of 80 children from children's homes in Romania. The main questions concerned factors influencing family stress in adoptive families. We used the Nijmegen Child Rearing Questionnaire, the Child Behaviour Checklist and questionnaires measuring trauma, autism, ADHD, and adoption satisfaction. The family stress of the total group of adoptive parents was significantly higher than in the control group of non adoptive parents. The group was divided into a clinical (N=41) and a non-clinical (N=39) group according to the results on the above mentioned instruments. The non-clinical group experienced less family stress than the control group. This implies that adoptive parents are psychologically stronger than other parents. The parents of the clinical group experience significantly more family stress and significantly less satisfaction in the adoption than both the non-clinical and control group. The main factors influencing family stress and adoption satisfaction are Post Traumatic Stress Reaction (PTSR) and Externalising problem behaviour.

This is the first report of the second part of a longitudinal study of adopted children born in Romania. Seventy two Dutch adoptive parents, who adopted 80 Romanian children, filled in the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and 'The Nijmegen child rearing questionnaire' (NVOS). They also participated in a semi-structured interview (respons 83%). Of the adoptees scored on Total Problems 36% and on the Externalizing dimension 34% in the clinical range of the CBCL. They frequently scored clinical for 'Attention problems', 'Thought problems' and 'Social problems'. A significant number of children who were two years or older at placement and less than five years in the adoptive family scored in the clinical range on almost all CBCL syndromes. The CBCL-scores predicted for 56% of the mothers who filled in the NVOS and for 51% of the fathers, the positive or negative judgement of family-stress.