This meta-analysis integrates the results of 85 studies on psychiatric disorders and treatment in adoptees and non-adoptees. The risk of adoptees experiencing psychiatric disorders, contact with mental health services, or treatment in a psychiatric hospital was approximately twice as high as that of non-adoptees. Elevated risks were observed for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, anxiety disorders, conduct disorders/oppositional defiant disorders, depression, substance use disorders, and psychoses. Larger effect sizes were, in part, found in clinical studies than in community-based studies, in studies with a higher percentage of individuals adopted after the age of three years and international adoptees, and in older studies.
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Behle et al. (2016) studied this question.
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