Association of parenting style with mental disorders and gender difference among children and adolescents

Objective To examine the influence of parenting style on mental disorders by gender among children and adolescents.Methods Using stratified multistage random cluster sampling, we recruited 8488 students aged 6-17 years from 31 primary schools, 27 junior high schools, and 15 senior high schools and vocational schools in urban and rural regions of Liaoning province.Egna Minnen Betrffande Uppfostran:One's Memories of Upbringing(EMBU), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire(SDQ), and a self-designed questionnaire were self-administered among the students for screening survey.Then we adopted The Development and Well Being Assessment(DAWBA) to perform a face-to-face survey by trained interviewers among the students with positive SDQ score.Results The prevalence of mental disorders was 7.99% and 10.82% among the male and female students.Among the male students, paternal emotional warmth and understanding factor were correlated with depression(D) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD); paternal rejection and denial were related to ADHD; paternal overprotection was associated with anxiety(A), ADHD, and oppositional defiant disorder(ODD); maternal emotional warmth and understanding factor were correlated with D, A, and ODD; maternal overprotection was related to ADHD.Among the female students, paternal emotional warmth and understanding factor were correlated to D, ADHD, and ODD; paternal rejection, denial and overprotection were related to D and ADHD; maternal emotional warmth was associated with D, ADHD, and ODD and maternal overprotection was related to D, A, and ADHD.Conclusion Parental rearing behaviors play an important role in mental health among children and adolescents.