Karakteristike i međusobna povezanost empatije i roditeljstva kod adolescenatasa poremećajem ponašanja

Abstract

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.