Background Disruptive behaviour disorders are a common set of diagnoses in childhood and adolescence, with global estimates of 5.7%. The most investigated risk factor for disruptive behaviour disorders is parenting practices. By conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies using quasi-experimental methods which enable stronger causal inference, we aimed to identify the most stringent evidence on the relationship between both positive and negative parenting practices and disruptive behaviour.

Methods We included publications that used genetically informed family-based designs, natural experiments, propensity score methods or within-person fixed-effects analyses. Two researchers independently screened articles for eligibility and, if deemed eligible, extracted their data. Multi-level random-effects meta-analyses were used to pool the results and assess evidence of heterogeneity. Potential subgroups, including participant characteristics and study features, were selected a-priori.

Results We identified 41 studies which used data from 27 distinct cohorts (n = 36,661) and implemented 8 different quasi-experimental methods. There was no support for an association between positive parenting and offspring disruptive behaviour (pooled standardised regression coefficient r = -0.064; 95% CI = -0.154, 0.026; I² = 22.03%). There was evidence of a moderate association between negative parenting on offspring disruptive behaviour (pooled r = 0.142; 95% CI = 0.104, 0.180;I² = 44.52%) and analyses of subgroups indicated that this association was consistent across offspring sex and type of disruptive behaviour outcome but varied by offspring age, type of quasi-experimental design, raters for exposure and outcome and study quality.

Discussion The current study provides stringent evidence of a small, causal effect of negative parenting on offspring disruptive behaviour. The clinical implications of these results are that even the most effective parenting interventions may be expected to produce small effects on offspring disruptive behaviours.