The Relationship Between Children with Psychiatric Disorder and Personality Traits of Their Mothers

INTRODUCTION: The aim of our study was to determine whether there is a relationship between maternal personality traits and the child's psychiatric disorder.
METHODS: The data for this cross-sectional case-control study were collected from mothers of 134 children with a psychiatric disorder who applied to the child psychiatry department of a university hospital between February and June 2021 and the mothers of 92 children without any psychiatric disorders. Participants were evaluated by using Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised-Short Form.
RESULTS: A total of 226 mothers participated in our study, 59.29% (134) of whom were the mothers of a child diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, and 40.71% (92) were the mothers of a healthy child. The neuroticism and psychoticism scores were significantly higher in the mothers of the patient group, and the extraversion score was significantly higher in the mothers of the control group. (p <0.001). There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of lie traits scores (p = 0.309). While the highest maternal extraversion scores were seen in the group with skin picking disorder followed by attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the highest lie traits score was found in the mothers of children with ADHD. Neuroticism and psychoticism scores were the highest, while extraversion scores were the lowest in mothers of children with intellectual disabilities.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: We determined that there was a significant relationship between the presence of psychiatric disorders in children and the personality traits of the mothers.