Examination of the parentification related variables of individuals with disabled and healthy siblings

The phenomenon of parentification is defined as the lack of boundaries between the sub-systems that constitute the family system and the assumption that children undertake the roles and responsibilities of the parents in a way that is not suitable for their age and developmental periods. Previous studies have indicated that family stressors such as alcoholic parent, immigration, or disabled member of the family would increase the phenomenon of parentification. It is seen that phenomenon of parentification affects interpersonal relations and personal traits also is related with some psychopathological problems. This study was aimed to evaluate the relations between parentification and psychological symptoms, obsessive-compulsive symptoms; these relations examine with anger and responsibility as a mediator and having a disabled or healthy sibling and social support as a moderator role was. Another aim of this study was to examine whether parentification phenomenon is differentiated for socio-demographic variables like gender, birth order and socio-economic status of the family. The sample consisted of 18 years old or higher 104 siblings (41.1%) of children with a disability, and 149 (58.9%) controls who have a healthy sibling. Participants completed the Parentification Inventory, The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, The Obsessive Belief Questionnaire, The State – Trait Anger Scales, The Patient Health Questionnaire Somatic, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptom Scales and Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised As a result of the analyzes, it was found that those with siblings with special needs had higher parentification score towards their siblings and they perceive parentification less benefical than those who were not. Another result of the study shows that as perceived benefit/adaptation variable decreases and anger mediator variable increases, psychological symptoms are increasing. Lastly, when the role of mediator and moderator variables was examined, it was seen that relation between parentification and anger/responsibility was regulated by low social support among those who do not have disabled siblings. As a result of mutual interaction in this relation, it was found that anger/responsibility have mediator effect between sibling focused parentification and OCD or psychological symptoms. Keywords Parentification, responsibility, social support, state anger, siblings with disability, psychological symptoms, obsessive compulsive disorder