Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Dyadic adjustment in parents of schizophrenics
Alberto Espina1, Asunción Ortego, Iñigo Ochoa de Alda
1Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, Faculty of Psychology, Avenida de Tolosa 70, 20018 San Sebastián, Guipúzcoa, Spain. ptpeseia@ss.ehu.es
Objective:
To study the dyadic adjustment in couples with a schizophrenic offspring.
Method:
140 married couples, 67 with children with schizophrenia, and two control groups: 41 couples without pathology and 32 couples with pathology, were assessed with the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale.
Results:
The couples with a schizophrenic offspring evidenced significantly worse dyadic adjustment than did the normal controls, especially low consensus and cohesion in husbands, and low cohesion and satisfaction in wives. Anxiety and depression in mothers of schizophrenics is significantly higher than in mothers of controls.
Discussion:
These findings suggest that the poor dyadic adjustment of the parents with a schizophrenic offspring could be an effect of the burden.
Conclusion:
The treatment on the schizophrenia should be supplemented by interventions aimed at parents' dyadic adjustment, and mothers' anxiety and depression, so that they can be in better conditions to help their child.
Related Concept Videos
Psychological and Sociocultural Causes of Schizophrenia
Theory of Romantic Attachment in Adulthood
Personality Disorders: Paranoid and Schizoid
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Paranoid personality disorder is...
Relationship with Parents: Attachment
Schizophrenia
Adler's Individual Psychology