Karakteristike i međusobna povezanost empatije i roditeljstva kod adolescenatasa poremećajem ponašanja
Characteristics and interconnectedness of empathy and parenting in the adolescents with conduct disorder
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The main objective of this study was to investigate the characteristics of empathy as a
special form of compassion and understanding of other people’s perspective and the
dimensions of parental acceptance on one side and rejecting on the other, as well as their
interconnectedness in groups of adolescents with and without conduct disorder. Another
aim was to investigate the relationship between empathy and perceived parental behavior
and sociodemographic and family variables in both examined groups, as well as the
relationship between empathy and perceived parenting and the level of the level of
externalizing problems in the group of adolescents with conduct disorder. The sample was
comprised of 86 adolescents with a clinical diagnosis of conduct disorder (43 males and 43
females), mean age 16.49 ± 1.94. The control group consisted of 85 general population
adolescents (40 males and 45 females), mean age 16.95 ± 1.77. All examinees gave
answers to questions from the following self-report... questionnaires: a structured
questionnaire constructed for the purpose of this research, the Youth Self Report (YSR,
Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001), for young people aged 11 to 18, the Interpersonal Reactivity
Index (IRI, Davis, 1983) and the Parental Acceptance/Rejection Questionnaire (PARQchild
version, Rohner, 1984). The results suggest that the level of empathy is lowered in
adolescents with conduct disorders compared to the healthy population of adolescents, and
that it is associated with both sociodemographic variables and parental acceptance/
rejection. Compared with the group of examinees without conduct disorder, the association
pattern between empathy and parental rejection is specific in terms of a positive correlation
between personal distress and perceived maternal rejection. These findings may have
practical application in the context of targeting interventions at empathy and parenting
skills training. Preventive work with adolescents who have problems with empathy
associated with the problems of parental acceptance may help prevent the development, or
at least alleviate the symptoms, of this increasingly frequent disorder in our society.