Rearing style and depressive disorder in adulthood: a controlled study in a Spanish clinical sample

The aim of this study was to investigate the style of rearing in a sample of depressive patients and compare it with a control group of normal subjects of similar age, sex, and civil status. The hypothesis to verify was that among the depressives the style of rearing is characterised by a deficit in Emotional Warmth and an excess of Rejection and Protection. We analysed whether the severity of the depression - Major Depressive Disorders versus Depressive Disorders Not Otherwise Specified - was associated with differences in the perceived rearing conditions.

It was an observational study of the case/control type. There were 50 patients, whose first depressive episode (DSM-III-R criteria) began in the 6 months prior to the interview. They were entered sequentially into the study sample. The control group comprised 50 subjects with no depressive pathology, matched by age, sex, and social class.

The EMBU questionnaire was applied to all the subjects.

Only 35% of all depressive patients, as against 64% of the controls, had experienced an optimum upbringing. It is shown that a deficit in Emotional Warmth and a high level of Rejection constitute parental attitudes that are significantly more frequent among depressives than among subjects with no psychiatric pathology. Type of depression or degree of intimacy did not influence the scores obtained in the subscales of the EMBU. Depressives pertaining to lower social classes tended to score higher in Overprotection and Rejection scales.