[SCL-90 test result on the left-behind children in rural area: a meta-analysis]

To evaluate the mental health status of the left-behind children in rural area.

A computerized literature search was carried out in PubMed, CBM (Chinese Biomedical Database), CNKI (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure), Wanfang (Chinese), VIP (Chinese) databases and so on, to collect articles published between 1994 and 2009 concerning the mental health status of the left-behind children in rural area. We also checked the reference lists of relevant articles. The study type was cross-sectional study and the survey instrument was SCL-90. Meta-analyses were performed to assess 9 dimensions, i.e., compulsion, depression, anxiety, etc. Fixed and random effect models were employed to combine results after a heterogeneity test, with weighted mean difference (WMD) used as the indicator of intervention effect.

In total, 39 literatures were searched and 8 literatures were included. Meta-analyses showed that there were statistical significance with WMD of 8 dimensions (P < 0.05) except "compulsion". When the results from the Meta-analyses were stratified according to sampling methods, the outcomes showed that there were statistical significance with WMD of 7 dimensions (P < 0.05) except "hostility" and "paranoid" by using cluster sampling, and there were statistical significance with WMD of 8 dimensions (P < 0.05) except "compulsion" by using random sampling. The sensitivity analysis did not change the pattern of results.

There were more serious mental health problems in the left-behind children than other children in rural area.