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BACKGROUND: Worry, a core feature of anxiety disorder, is shown in not only children with anxiety disorder but also normal children. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between worry and family environment factors, especially, perceived parental rearing and attachment styles among children. METHODS: Five hundred and nine children participated in this study among 549 children in third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades in two primary schools located in Seoul and Seongnam from October 2007 to December 2007. Forty children did not agree with participation (rejection rate: 7.3%). Their degrees of worry, attachment styles and perceived parental rearing were investigated with questionnaires. RESULTS: The reliability of a questionnaire asking children's worry, PSWQ-C and a questionnaire asking perceived parental rearing, modified EMBU-C was appropriate with internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha of PSWQ-C: 0.92, Cronbach's alpha of modified EMBU-C: 0.68~0.89). Around 22.4% of children had insecure attachment (avoidant or ambivalent attachment) and scores of worry were high in both girls and boys. When children perceived their parental rearing behavior as anxious rearing, they were classified to have ambivalent attachment in many cases by themselves. And when they perceived the rearing as rejection many of them were classified to have avoidant or ambivalent attachment by themselves. Worry showed a significantly negative correlation in the cases where children answered their perceived parental rearing as emotional warmth and showed a significantly positive correlation with rejective and anxious rearing. CONCLUSION: This study found that children's worry was closely related with their perceived parental rearing and attachment styles. If the children's attachment, which has been developed while they have grown up, was insecure and they did not perceive parental rearing as emotional warmth, the intensity of worry, a core symptom of anxiety disorder, increased.
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Child , Humans , Anxiety Disorders , Only Child , Parents , Rejection, Psychology , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
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SUMMARY Introduction: Childrearing or parenting is the assumption of responsibility for the emotional, social and physical growth and development of a child. Research literature has identified three related components commonly associated to rearing or parenting: a) spontaneous emotions and attitudes that are non-goal directed parental behaviors such as gestures, changes in the tone of voice, temperamental bursts, body language; b) specific goal-directed parental practices, which are better understood in the context of a socialization domain (academic achievement, peer cooperation), and c) the value system and beliefs of parents related to socialization goals of their children. Based on sound empirical data, there is no doubt about the impact of child-rearing environments on a wide variety of outcomes, ranging from normal variations of adaptive functioning and school success to an array of psychopathological results such as drug abuse, aggressive behavior, and anxiety in children and adolescents. During adolescence, parenting implies the transformation of the relationships between parents and children. This is a critical transition period in which the emerging social demands turn it into a particularly vulnerable period of life. Psychological distress that arises in adolescents may threaten their mental health on a medium and long term-basis. Based on an exhaustive literature study related to the parentchild relationship and the shared family environment, Repetti et al. suggest that conflict, lack of cohesion and organization, as well as unsupportive, cold and neglectful environments, were characteristic of families in risk of developing physical and mental problems. Adolescent studies provided evidence related to alcohol and drugs abuse, involvement in pregnancy, aggressive behaviour and delinquency as outcomes for children from families lacking cohesion and orderliness, as well as emotional warmth, support and involvement in parenting. Thus, it is important to rely on instruments that measure parenting and whose dimensions have proven to be relevant to the outcomes evaluated. One empirically evaluated instrument, in terms of internal consistency, construct validity, and convergent and divergent validity in transcultural context, is the Egna Minnen Betraffande Uppfostran-My memories of upbringing (EMBU). It has been extensively used and adapted in more than 25 countries, including Spanish-speaking populations from Guatemala, Venezuela and Spain. Factor analyses have revealed four factors (emotional warmth, rejection, control/overprotection and favouring subject), and multiple studies have documented the validity, reliability and cross-national transferability of the EMBU. Criticism regarding the retrospective nature of the EMBU has been overcome by designs with younger samples confirming its cross-stability for all scales except favouritism scale. There is a lack of instruments measuring parenting in Spanishspeaking countries. It is imperative to evaluate parental perceptions with adolescents as the source of information. There is, therefore, a need to empirically evaluate a reliable and valid parenting measurement, whose relational nature dimensions (warmth/rejection, control) can also be compared with those found in other countries. The purpose of the present study was to explore the psychometric properties of the EMBU-I in a sample of Mexican adolescents. In particular, its aim was to test the reliability (internal consistency), the congruency of the dimensions for fathers and mothers and within the scales comprising the EMBU, and its convergent and divergent validity. Method: Seven hundred seventy five adolescents, with a mean age of 13.81 years, from two secondary schools, one public and one private, participated in the study. Instruments: EMBU-C, parental involvement in studies scale, and the cohesion, conflict and organization scales from the FES. All of them showed reliability values above .50. Results: Emotional warmth, rejection, and control showed evidence of good internal consistency (Cronbach's alphas above or equal .65), except favoritism, in agreement with previous studies. Correlation between both scales, for father and mother (emotional warmth, rejection and control) was positive and high. Negative correlations were found between emotional warmth and rejection, as expect. Interestingly, perception of father control positively correlated with warmth, whereas perception of mother control was higher loaded on rejection than in warmth. The multiple correlation analysis of each scale of the EMBU and the other instruments were as follows: warmth in both parents correlated positively with organization and cohesion in family and rejection, again in both parents, also correlated with conflict. Warmth and control for father, as well as for mother, correlated with parental involvement in studies, but stronger correlations were documented in the case of perception of father's involvement. For mothers, cohesion and organization showed a tendency to correlate higher with involvement in studies. Results support the convergent validity of the scales. Evidence for the divergent validation was provided through the negative correlations found between warmth and conflict. This was also true for cohesion and organization, with regard to rejection. As expected, rejection also showed a negative correlation with parental involvement in studies. In agreement with other studies, the present study corroborates internal consistency in Mexican adolescents, as well as convergent and divergent validity of the EMBU-C scales of emotional warmth, rejection and control. A finding of this study was the different correlation tendency found between the dimension of control for fathers and mothers, suggesting that control in fathers is perceived more as warmth than rejection, in contrast to other studies. Also warmth and control, again in the fathers' case, correlated higher with involvement in studies. This finding is in agreement with Youniss and Smollar, whose findings suggest a differential perception of fathers and mothers, especially in early adolescence. Mexican boys and girls tend to perceive fathers with more deference and as advisors or instructors. Although the risky families' construct has a wider perspective, it is also important to evaluate separately the family unit with regard to the adolescent-parent relationship because intervention strategies are different. According to adolescent perception, parenting dimensions related to emotional climate are notably related to other parental components, such as parental involvement in school or family cohesion and organization. Psychometric properties of EMBU-C were acceptable in terms of reliability and validity. It proved to be a useful tool for future studies, purported to evaluate adolescent perception of parental childrearing. Future studies should provide further data on test-retest reliability, confirmatory factor analyses testing the three factor resolution found in previous studies and on its convergent validity. Limitations of the present study arise from the sample of students and its socioeconomic or demographic restrictions. Future studies could overcome the fact that data come only from one source, i.e., children. Concurrent validity comparing EMBU-C with other parenting indicators is also needed.
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Objective To explore the features of the parental rearing behavior in schizophrenics with a brilliant school records.Methods 51 schizophrenics in remission with brilliant records were tested by EMBU.36 healthy volunteers were randomized into the controls group.Result Subjects with schizophrenia had abnormal parental rearing behavior,such as overprotection, predilection over intervention and over punishment of parents.Most of them come from peasant family.Conclusion The factors such as abnormal parental rearing behavior probably influence the development of schizophrenics.
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Objective: To compare the difference of family environment and other factors having influence on academic achievement of university students between freshmen in one key-university and another un-key-university Methods: 3995 freshmen (2214 from a key university of Beijing, 1781 from an un-key university of inner Mongolia) were investigated with the EMBU scale and the General Information Questionnaire Results: The freshmen of the two universities had different experience in nearly all aspects investigated, including parental rearing behavior, educational levels, occupation, family type, family economic status, etc Parenting styles of parents, poor parental relationship, lower income and educational level, residency and race had effect on academic achievement of the freshmen Conclusion:Freshmen in different universities have different family environment and parental rearing
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Objective: To explore the effect of comprehensive intervention to correct parental unhealthy rearing behavior on middle-school students. Methods: Eight freshman classes were randomly extracted from two key junior middle schools, four classes as the experimental groups, the other four as the control group. EMBU was applied to measure the difference before and after intervention of both groups. The comprehensive intervention was used, mainly the individual family mental health education and group family education. Results: After intervention, there were significant improvement in the parents' emotional warmth and understanding factors of experimental group(53.0?10.6/49.3?10.1, 55.7?10.9/50.4?10.5,t= 4.24 or 5.80,P
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Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between sex behavior of high school students, their mental health and thier parental rearing behavior. Methods: 905 students were studied with sexual health questionnaires (self-designed), SCL-90 and EMBU. Results: 8.5% of the students have had sex and male students of having sex had more problems with parental rearing behavior and female students having sex had more psychological symptoms. Conclusion: More attention should be paid to sexuality health education and to prevent STD and AIDS.
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Objective:To screen neuroses in medical students and explore related factors.Method:Totally 1677 college students were screened by Neuroses Screener,who was positive(scored 2 or more)was investigated with Questionnaire on History of Neuroses and interviewed by psychiatrist.Psychiatric diagnosis was made if necessary according to CCMD-2-R.EPQ,EMBU and Quality of Life Scale were applied to all subjects.Multi-factor analysis was made.Results:Negative life events,unhealthy parentai education and neuroticism in EPQ were main factors influencing the incidence of neurosis.EPQ-E and warmth from parents had protective effect on occurrence of neurosis.Conclusion:Neuroticism is the basis of neurosis,unhealthy parental education and negative life events precipitate the occurrence of neurosis.Exorcism and warmth of parents have protective effect.
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Objective:To study behavior problems,family factors an d parental rearing styles in students with poor academic achievement.Meth od:Through stratified cluster sampling,488 primary or middle school studen t s were identified as study group(below 5th percentile in their classes),while th e controls were 599 students whose academic achievement were above 95th percent ile in their classes.All subjects completed EMBU,CBCL(children behavior checkli st).Results:Higher boy/girl ratio was pound in study group(326/162) than in control(291/308,? 2=36.4,p