Cross-national study of perceived parental rearing behaviour in healthy subjects from Australia, Denmark, Italy, The Netherlands and Sweden: pattern and level comparisons

Sex-related differences in parental rearing patterns in young adults with bipolar disorder

The aim of this study was to examine the parenting characteristics of young patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and explore the sex differences. The parental rearing pattern of young patients with BD was measured and compared with the healthy control of young adults. The EMBU scale was used to assess parental rearing patterns. Patients with BD reported significantly higher scores in the punishment and severity index, as well as of the rejection and denial index, but lower scores in the warmth & affectionate index in the paternal rearing pattern, compared with healthy controls. In addition, patients scored higher on the punishment and severity index and rejection and patterns index in maternal rearing patterns. More importantly, we found significant sex differences in maternal rearing patterns (pBonferroni < 0.05). Specifically, in the maternal rearing patterns, male patients had higher scores on the favoring index than male controls, whereas female patients had lower scores on the warmth & affectionate index than female controls. This study shows significant differences in parental rearing patterns between patients and control subjects. Male patients were overprotective by their mothers and female patients were overlooked by their mothers during upbringing.

Effect of Parent Training on Health-Related Quality of Life in Preschool Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Secondary Analysis of Data From a Randomized Controlled Trial

OBJECTIVE

School-age children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL), but it is unclear whether this is also true for preschool children. It is unknown whether parent training (PT) improves HRQoL. This study compared HRQoL in preschool children with ADHD with age-matched children from the general population; examined whether PT improves HRQoL; and tested if treatment-related changes in HRQoL were mediated by improvements in ADHD, parent efficacy, and family stress.

METHOD

Parents of 164 children age 3-7 years with an ADHD diagnosis participated in a randomized controlled trial comparing the New Forest Parenting Programme and treatment as usual. Measures of HRQoL, ADHD, parent efficacy, and family stress were completed at baseline, posttreatment, and 36-week follow-up. Child baseline HRQoL was compared with 2 general population-based reference groups. PT effects were analyzed using linear models and mediation analyses.

RESULTS

Preschoolers with ADHD had lower HRQoL than the reference groups. The New Forest Parenting Programme, but not treatment as usual, was associated with improvement in psychosocial HRQoL at posttreatment (change 2.28, 95% CI [0.78, 3.77]) and at 36-week follow-up (change 2.05, 95% CI [0.56, 3.54]). This difference between treatment arms was not statistically significant. Parent efficacy and family stress scores at posttreatment significantly mediated improvements in HRQoL at 36-week follow-up; ADHD scores at posttreatment did not.

CONCLUSION

ADHD negatively impacts HRQoL in early childhood. PT for ADHD has the potential to improve HRQoL independently of its effects on ADHD symptoms.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION INFORMATION

A Controlled Study of Parent Training in the Treatment of ADHD in Young Children (D'SNAPP); http://clinicaltrial.gov/; NCT01684644.

Parental acceptance-rejection and child prosocial behavior: Developmental transactions across the transition to adolescence in nine countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys

Promoting children's prosocial behavior is a goal for parents, healthcare professionals, and nations. Does positive parenting promote later child prosocial behavior, or do children who are more prosocial elicit more positive parenting later, or both? Relations between parenting and prosocial behavior have to date been studied only in a narrow band of countries, mostly with mothers and not fathers, and child gender has infrequently been explored as a moderator of parenting-prosocial relations. This cross-national study uses 1,178 families (mothers, fathers, and children) from 9 countries to explore developmental transactions between parental acceptance-rejection and girls' and boys' prosocial behavior across 3 waves (child ages 9 to 12). Controlling for stability across waves, within-wave relations, and parental age and education, higher parental acceptance predicted increased child prosocial behavior from age 9 to 10 and from age 10 to 12. Higher age 9 child prosocial behavior also predicted increased parental acceptance from age 9 to 10. These transactional paths were invariant across 9 countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. Parental acceptance increases child prosocial behaviors later, but child prosocial behaviors are not effective at increasing parental acceptance in the transition to adolescence. This study identifies widely applicable socialization processes across countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. (PsycINFO Database Record

Agreement in Mother and Father Acceptance-Rejection, Warmth, and Hostility/Rejection/Neglect of Children across Nine Countries

We assessed whether mothers' and fathers' self-reports of acceptance-rejection, warmth, and hostility/rejection/neglect (HRN) of their pre-adolescent children differ cross-nationally and relative to the gender of the parent and child in 10 communities in 9 countries, including China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States (N = 998 families). Mothers and fathers in all countries reported a high degree of acceptance and warmth, and a low degree of HRN, but countries also varied. Mothers reported greater acceptance of children than fathers in China, Italy, Sweden, and the United States, and these effects were accounted for by greater self-reported warmth in mothers than fathers in China, Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand and less HRN in mothers than fathers in Sweden. Fathers reported greater warmth than mothers in Kenya. Mother and father acceptance-rejection were moderately correlated. Relative levels of mother and father acceptance and rejection appear to be country specific.

Recollections of parent-child relationships in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic disorder with agoraphobia

OBJECTIVE

In previous studies, patients with different psychiatric conditions, as compared with matched controls, have reported that their parents were more protective and less caring towards them when they were children. However, studies investigating associations between parental behaviours and anxiety disorders have yielded inconsistent results. The aim of this study was to compare recalled parental behaviours in out-patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), in out-patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia (PDA), and in non-anxious controls.

METHOD

The sample included 43 out-patients with OCD, 38 with PDA, and 120 controls. Participants completed the Parental Bonding Instrument and the Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran or Own Memories of Parental Rearing Experiences in Childhood.

RESULTS

No differences were found between the two anxious groups. However, compared with the control group, anxious patients recalled their parents as more protective.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that child rearing practices such as overprotection may be a risk factor in the development of anxiety disorders.

On the convergent validity of two Parental Rearing Behaviour Scales: EMBU and PBI

The EMBU and PBI are two of the most used Parental Rearing Behaviour questionnaires. The literature assumes a high correlation between homonymous and assimilable factors (PBI Care and EMBU Affectional Warmth, PBI Control and EMBU Overprotection). Using a sample of 796 subjects the authors carried out the joint application of both scales in order to determine their concurrent validity. The correlation obtained between the scales barely reaches significance on average levels of correlation. The same can be deduced for the applied Multidimensional Scaling. In conclusion, the most extreme precaution is recommended when considering the homonymous scales of both questionnaires, and their joint use in meta-analysis is not advised.

A pilot evaluation of the EMBU Scale in Japan and the USA

Cultural differences in parental attitudes and child-rearing practices among European countries have been demonstrated in previous studies using a scale for assessment of memories of upbringing (the EMBU). In this pilot study we evaluated the EMBU in two previously unstudied populations: a culturally homogeneous sample from Japan (n = 105) and a culturally mixed sample from Southern California (n = 73). The results suggest that, compared to European parents, Japanese parents are more emotionally distant from their children, while the Southern Californians as a group scored similarly to the Europeans. Further studies are needed in order to establish the EMBU as a transcultural tool for assessment of parental rearing behaviour.

The Nithsdale Schizophrenia Surveys. XIII. Parental rearing patterns, current symptomatology and relatives' expressed emotion

BACKGROUND

A population of adult schizophrenic patients was assessed to discover how the patients viewed their childhood, whether their view differed from non-schizophrenic adults, and to determine any association between parental rearing practices as perceived by the patient, childhood personality as perceived by the mother, and current symptoms. Type and level of expressed emotion shown by parents towards patients was also examined.

METHOD

Parental attitudes, as perceived by 50 schizophrenic patients, were assessed by the EMBU scale. Patients' premorbid personality and social adjustment were assessed through interviews with patients' mothers by the Scale for the Assessment of Premorbid Schizoid and Schizotypal Traits and the Premorbid Social Adjustment Scale. Current symptoms were assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and Subjective Deficit Syndrome Scale.

RESULTS

Patients saw little difference between fathers' and mothers' attitudes. There was a positive correlation between parental rejection and overprotection, and a negative correlation between rejection and warmth. There were no significant correlations between parental rearing attitudes and patients' childhood personality; there was a significant correlation between parental attitudes and current symptoms. Rejection and overprotection were associated with more severe, warmth with less severe symptoms, especially so for positive schizophrenic symptoms and general psychopathology. Although there was no association between the general level of expressed emotion shown by the parent towards the adult patient, and patients' perceived parental rearing attitudes, parents with high expressed emotion on the basis of hostility had higher rejection scores on the parental rearing attitudes scale.

CONCLUSIONS

Schizophrenic patients saw their parents as showing much less warmth, and the severity of currents symptoms was associated with perceived parental rearing attitudes. The hostility component of high expressed emotion may be a parental trait which exists before the illness begins.

Do perceived parental rearing patterns influence social behaviour dimensions and disease severity in schizophrenia?

In an explorative study, a clinical sample of 53 schizophrenic patients was examined. The EMBU inventory was used for measuring perceived parental rearing practices, the AfS for rating the quality of relationship to key relatives and the U-Scale for assessing social anxiety. The findings obtained were intercorrelated and compared with 3 selected parameters of disease severity: age at first hospitalization, number of treated episodes and length of hospital stay. The results suggest that the quality of contact with key relatives is determined to a larger extent by the schizophrenia than by parental rearing attitudes. Rearing behaviour more likely influences the age at first hospitalization and social anxiety, whereas considering the length of face-to-face contact, the quality of the relationships between patients and their key relatives can be assumed to be associated with the duration of hospital stays.

The early family situation of Hungarian depressed patients

In a series of fifty depressed patients and 258 controls possible differences in the early family situation as concerns parental rearing practices have been investigated by means of the Swedish EMBU inventory. The results show that the depressive experienced their parents as more "rejecting", more "overprotecting" and less "emotionally warm" as compared to their normal counterparts.

Drug addiction and parental rearing style: a controlled study

The parental rearing practices of 43 multiple drug addicts and 111 control subjects were compared using the EMBU, a psychometrically reliable instrument to assess parental attitudes and rearing behavior. Significant differences between addicts and controls were found on three dimensions: Rejection, Lack of Emotional Warmth, and Overprotection. The results were most striking for paternal rejection and lack of paternal emotional warmth.

Perceived parental rearing behaviour in unipolar and bipolar depressed patients. A verification study in an Italian sample

Two groups of former depressed Italian patients comprising 54 bipolars and 52 unipolars completed the Italian version of the EMBU, a Swedish instrument aimed at assessing the experience of parental rearing behaviour. As in a previous study of Swedish depressives, three factors, "rejection", "emotional warmth", and "over-protection", have been taken into account. The results obtained in the patient group have been compared with those obtained in Italian healthy controls. Depressed patients rated both parents significantly lower than the controls on the factor "emotional warmth". The present results cross-validate those obtained previously in the Swedish depressives and strengthen, together with other findings in the literature, the assumption that the lack of emotional warmth in the parents' rearing practices might be a crucial variable in the pathogenesis of depressive illnesses.