Emotional overinvolvement in parents of patients with schizophrenia or related psychosis: demographic and clinical predictors

Br J Psychiatry. 1996 Nov;169(5):622-30. doi: 10.1192/bjp.169.5.622.

Abstract

Background: Parental emotional overinvolvement (EOI) may entail a worse outcome in schizophrenia. In the present study we examined demographic and clinical predictors of EOI.

Method: The predictors were examined in a Norwegian sample of 41 recently admitted patients (schizophrenia or schizophreniform disorder) and 66 parents. Parents' expressed emotion was assessed by the Camberwell Family Interview.

Results: Regression analyses showed that higher EOI was significantly related, on the part of the parent, to being a mother, single, spending more time with the patient; and, on the part of the patient, to no substance misuse, more anxiety-depression, and less uncritical and aggressive behaviour. EOI was not linked to previous hospital admissions.

Conclusion: Our analyses indicate that characteristics of the parent and of the parent-patient dyad seem to be the most important determinants of EOI. EOI is probably not linked to psychotic relapse, but rather to affective disturbances in the patient.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Anxiety / diagnosis
  • Anxiety / psychology
  • Cost of Illness
  • Depression / diagnosis
  • Depression / psychology
  • Expressed Emotion
  • Humans
  • Mother-Child Relations
  • Parent-Child Relations*
  • Parenting / psychology*
  • Patient Admission
  • Personality Assessment
  • Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
  • Psychotic Disorders / diagnosis
  • Psychotic Disorders / psychology*
  • Schizophrenia / diagnosis*
  • Schizophrenic Psychology*
  • Single Parent / psychology
  • Social Behavior
  • Treatment Outcome