부모의 음주문제와 청소년 자녀의 정신병리

Parental Drinking Problem and Psychopathology of Adolescent Offspring

Children of alcoholics are noted to have behavioral, emotional, and substance abuse problems, and decreased academic achievement. And other factors such as inconsistent parental discipline and inadequate care are related to adolescents’ psychopathology. The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between parental drinking problem perceived by adolescents and their psychopathology. Eleven hundred and forty one students from two middle schools and two high schools in Wonju were enrolled in this study. Three hundred and ninety eight students were found to have parents with drinking problems with score over 6 of Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST). They were compared with the remaining 743 students as a control. On the Strengths and Difficulties QuestionnaireSelf Report (SDQ-SR), adolescents of parents with drinking problems had significantly higher score indicating the hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and peer problems than in the control group. Conduct problems were more prevalent in boys, as were emotional problems in girls. And we found that adolescents of parents with drinking problems showed significantly low levels of positive attitude toward parents, which predicted the severity of adolescent’s psychopathology. Therefore, therapeutic intervention for drinking problem of parents and improving the parents-child relationship would be helpful for adolescent’s mental health.