Parental personality disorder and child maltreatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Parental pathology may affect parenting capacity and is deemed a risk factor for child maltreatment. Especially parental personality disorder (PD) can significantly burden the relationship and interaction between parents and their children.

This meta-analytic review aims to summarize and quantify the influence of parental PD on the occurrence / the risk of child maltreatment.

Studies had to meet the following inclusion criteria: They had to analyze a sample of parents with a diagnosed PD and the occurrence / risk of maltreating their children. To be included in the narrative synthesis and/or meta-analysis, they had to be case-control, cross-sectional, or longitudinal studies. Literature research was conducted in the databases Web of Science, Psychinfo, and Google Scholar up to January 2023.

First, studies were analyzed on a narrative level, and eligible studies for the meta-analysis were identified. Studies were grouped according to the diagnosed PDs. Five different groups were included: borderline PD, antisocial PD, narcissistic PD, nondifferentiated PDs, and Cluster B PDs. Three different random-effects meta-analyses were computed (borderline PD, antisocial PD, Cluster B PDs). Meta-analyses were controlled for publication bias and different covariates (e.g., study quality, sample size).

After screening 41 full texts, 17 studies were included in the narrative synthesis, out of which 14 samples from 11 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Analysis of borderline PD showed an association with the occurrence / risk of child maltreatment (OR = 8.08; 95 % CI [2.51, 25.93]). However, after taking into account possible publication bias, this association was no longer significant. We found a significant and stable association between antisocial PD and the occurrence of / risk of child maltreatment (OR = 4.92; 95 % CI [3.26, 7.43]). Analysis of Cluster B PDs (antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic) revealed a significant overall association (OR = 4.23; 95 % CI [2.75, 6.5]), indicating that the presence of Cluster B PDs in parents significantly increases the occurrence of / the risk of child maltreatment.

Analyses indicated a significant association between of Cluster B PDs, and specifically between antisocial and borderline PD, with the occurrence of / the risk of child maltreatment. However, methodological limitations have to be taken into account, because results for borderline PD were no longer significant after controlling for possible publication bias. Moreover, the number of studies included was rather small, and results showed a substantial amount of heterogeneity.

This work was not supported by any funding.