The relationship between perceived parental attitudes and anxiety levels in young adults

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between perceived parental attitudes and trait anxiety levels of young adults. In the study, the "Parental Attitudes Scale" was used to assess parental attitudes and the "Trait Anxiety Inventory" was used to measure participants' anxiety levels. The study was conducted on young adults between the ages of 18-35 in Turkey and included a total of 386 participants. According to the results of the study, a moderate negative relationship was found between democratic parenting attitudes and trait anxiety, and a moderate positive relationship was found between authoritarian and protective-demanding parenting attitudes and trait anxiety levels. In addition, it was observed that participants with psychiatric diagnosis or psychological support had lower democratic parenting attitude scores and higher authoritarian and protective parenting attitude scores compared to participants without psychiatric diagnosis or psychological support. Democratic parenting attitude scores showed a statistically significant difference according to gender and were found to be higher in males. Democratic attitude scores showed a statistically significant difference according to father's education level. It was found that the democratic attitude scores of fathers who graduated from primary school were lower than the democratic attitude scores of fathers who graduated from high school. Trait anxiety inventory scores showed a statistically significant difference according to gender and it was found that women had higher anxiety scores than men. In conclusion, this study showed that there is a relationship between perceived parental attitudes and trait anxiety levels of young adults. There is a need for prospective studies with larger samples on this subject.