Parental Psychopathology: An Exploratory Study of Parenting and Behavioral Problems among Adolescents

Mental health problems are reflected in the family and parent-child interactions disrupting the quality of caregiving and consequently resulting in adverse emotional behavioral child outcomes. Despite the incredible work on parent-child interactions and emotional behavioral outcomes in children of parents with psychopathology in Western countries, there is an extreme scarcity in Pakistan for empirical support in this area of research. Hence the present study is designed to fill this gap. The current study is an effort to empirically explore the parenting and behavioral problems among a sample of adolescents having parents with psychopathology (Major Depressive Disorder & Schizophrenia) and without psychopathology. For this purpose, 348 parents participated in the study with their adolescent children divided into two groups: Parents who suffered from Psychopathology and those who did not suffer from any kind of Psychopathology. Twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi (Pakistan) were selected to approach the participants. Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) and Youth Self Report (YSR) were used to collect the data. The findings of the study revealed that parents with psychopathology reported less positive involvement/parenting and more negative/ineffective discipline as well as deficient monitoring. Likewise, their children (adolescents) scored higher on internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems as compared to those whose parents did not suffer from any psychopathology. Despite limitations, the results of current study are promising and significantly contribute to the existing literature. Implications have been discussed for planning the appropriate interventional strategies and specialized services for the affected children and their familiest. Key words: adolescents, behavioral problems, parenting practices, parents psychopathology.