Security of attachment in children and adolescents—An Indian experience

Abstract

Background Security of attachment plays a key role in a caregiver's relationship with the child. Though this construct is studied extensively during infancy, early and middle childhood in the west, there are only a few Indian studies available on early childhood. The present article reports three studies which examine security of attachment in middle childhood and adolescence using the Security Scale developed by Kerns et al. (2000). Methods In all three studies, the data were collected from a cross sectional sample. Normal school going children formed the sample in studies I and II, whereas study III had both a normal and a clinical group of children. Results Findings from studies I and II indicate secure attachment of children and adolescents with their parents. In study III, the normal group of children showed better security of attachment as compared to the clinical group of children. Conclusions The authors of the present study highlight the applicability of the security scale in an Indian setting and suggest further research on standardization of the tool and its clinical utility.