Attachment styles and psychopathology in the adolescent of parents with bipolar mood disorder

The aims of this study were to examine the attachment styles and psychopathology in the adolescent children of parents with Bipolar Mood Disorder (BMD). The study included 25 adolescents who had a parent BMD and 28 adolescents whose parents were both healtly, all the children included were between 12-17 years old. All adolescents were screened by using Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children- Present and Life-time Version (K-SADSPL). The Adolescent Relationship Scales Questionnaire (A-RSQ) were administered to determine attachments styles of adolescents. All parents, except parents with BMD, were screened by using half Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I Clinic Version) to exclude psychopathology. In this study it was found that the adolescent children of BMD parents scored significantly higher on dismissing attachment style than adolescent who had healthy parents. 12 (48%) of 25 index adolescent were diagnosed with at least one DSM IV Axis I diagnosis an compared to 5 (18%) of 28 children of healthy control parents and these difference was statistically different (p<0.05). However there were not any significant differences when certain psychiatric disorders were evaluated separately. Although our results have suggested that adolescent with Bipolar parent may have elevated risk for developing psychiatric disorders and also have more dismissing attachment style these findings are needed to confirmed with studies in larger samples.