Resilience, Risk and Protective Factors in Children and Adolescents Growing Up with Parental Alcohol Misuse

Abstract The present scoping review addresses resilience, risk/protective factors, and coping in children growing up with parental alcohol misuse. Around 8.7 million children in the USA live with a parent who misuses alcohol, and between 780,000 and 1.3 million children in the UK live in families affected by alcohol misuse. Our preliminary search indicated that no existing global statistics are available on children living with parental alcohol misuse, which underscores the importance of expanding knowledge in this field. On the one hand, research shows that growing up in homes where one or two parents have an alcohol use disorder can lead to a variety of challenging outcomes in adulthood for the children. On the other hand, there are children who face these hurdles in their childhood but manage their adulthood better than expected. Twenty-five primary studies were included. These studies were conducted in different parts of the world. Findings are discussed in view of attachment theory and regulation theory as a framework for understanding resilience, risk/protective factors, and coping in children and adolescents growing up with parental alcohol misuse. We identified risk and protective factors on biological, individual, parental, familial, and social levels. Each level addresses factors that affect children’s physical and psychological development, both positively and negatively. Furthermore, the analysis included research on interventions implemented to prevent negative consequences for the children involved. Analysis of the literature indicates that further research on familial and social levels is required.