The Perceived Parental Fostering Attitudes by Schizophrenics

Lee, Jong Il; Nam, Jung Hyun

Abstract

Family discord and social maladjustment is frequently noticed within the family of schizophrenics. Several decades ago this family dysfunction itself had been considered as a cause of schizophrenia. According to the concept of the "schizophrenogenic mother", schizophrenia results from an inadequate mother-child relationship. Although this concept is not the case today, the parental fostering attitudes to schizophrenic patients and their family environment have been thought to be one of the important factors in recurrence and prognosis of schizophrenia. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceived parental fostering altitudes in schizophrenic patients. The author selected 52 schizophrenic patients diagnosed with the criteria of DSM-III -L 52 patient's siblings and 69 controls which consisted of randomly selected college students and laymen. The subjects were asked to fill out "The Parental fostering Attitude Scale" consisted of 43 items with a S-point rating score. In the parental fostering attitude scale, 8 subscales of affection, hostility, control, anxious emotion, consistent limitation, active participation, rational guidance and achievement were evaluated. The results were as follows. first of all, The perceived maternal attitudes was not significantly different between schizophrenic patients and the control poop except the achievement subscale. No significant differences of perceived paternal attitudes were found between the patient group and the control group. In short, the hypothesis of fromm-Leichmann that mothers of schizophrenic patient are aloof rejecting, overprotective and overtly hostile, is not consistent with our results. Secondly, perceived parental attitudes did not show any significant differences among groups by the educational level of the subjects. Thirdly, fathers in all groups were perceived as less affective, more hostile, not overprotective and controlling, not limiting consistently and guiding rationally on children's behavior, and less supportive on achievement than mothers. The paternal fostering attitudes were more problematic and further elaboration is needed.