Investigating the roles of psychological control and parental maladaptive perfectionism on the relationship between parental separation anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms among adolescents

The aim of the present study was to investigate the roles of psychological control and parental maladaptive perfectionism on the relationship between parental separation anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The proposed model hypothesized that parental maladaptive perfectionism moderates the relationship between parental separation anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms via psychological control.198 adolescent-mother dyads participated to the study. Data was collected from social media via the Qualtrics. While parents filled Adult Separation Anxiety (ASA-27) and Frost Multi-dimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS), adolescents completed Psychological Control Scale–Youth Self-Report (PCS-YSR) and Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Child Version (OCI-CV). The data was analyzed with Moderated Mediation Analysis (Model-7) in SPSS. According to results, parental maladaptive perfectionism did not moderate the indirect effect of psychological control on parental separation anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. However, direct effect of parental separation anxiety on obsessive-compulsive symptoms was significant. On the other hand, relationship between parental separation anxiety and psychological control was significant and positive. Link between psychological control and obsessive-compulsive symptoms was also significant and positive. Results indicate that although conditional effect of parental maladaptive perfectionism on the indirect relationship of psychological control on parental separation anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms was not significant, parental elements that investigated in this study might be important risk factor for obsessive-compulsive symptoms among adolescents.