Family functioning and individual psychopathology in a non-clinical general population

Abstract

Introduction

A family “constructs” an identity of its own derived from their assumptions about relationships and the social environment they live in. This identity transcends the individual while at the same time encourages individual differentiation. Family functioning is influenced from different factors like social context, qualitative characteristics, and from individual's medical or psychiatric condition.

Aims and objectives

To examined the effects of sociodemographic factors and individual psychopathology on the function of family in a non-clinical sample.

Methods

Cross-sectional study of participants and their families. The follow data collected:

• –demographics (age, gender, occupation, education);

• –description of the family (number of members, single parents family, adoption);

• –history of mental or physical illnesses;

• –Family Assessment Device (FAD);

• –Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90).

Results

The sample constituted of 151 families, (453 individuals), in 48 families, 2 family members participated, in 56 families, 3 members participated, in 46 families 4 members participated and 1 family had 5 members participating. One hundred ninety-four (42.8%) were children and 259 (57.2%) were parents. The mean age of the children was 23.62 (SD: 6.35) and 68 (35%) were males. Mean age of the parents was 51.4 (SD: 8.2) and 117 (45.2%) were males. SCL-90 identified 183 participants as caseness. Multilevel analysis showed that individual psychopathology (caseness) was the only statistical significant factor for family dysfunctioning.

Conclusion

There is strong association between family dysfunction and psychopathology of a member. Dysfunctional families need further psychiatric evaluation of the members. Cause-effect cannot be concluded from this cross-sectional study.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.