Somatic Symptoms During Adolescence: Does Parenting Style Play a Role?

Abstract

A positive relationship exists between anxious and depressive symptoms and somatic symptoms in children and adolescents. Somatic symptoms have been associated with physical discomfort, poor school attendance, social difficulties, and frequent medical visits. Prevalence studies suggest that in youth, somatic symptoms are most common within adolescent samples. In one study, 23% of 13 to 17 year olds reported somatic symptoms over a one year period (compared to 13% of 2 to 6 year olds and 17% of 7 to 12 year olds). Thus, interventions aimed at decreasing such symptoms among adolescents are important. Behavioral interventions taught directly to the patient are common. Little is known about other systems within a child's environment and the role they play in the development or maintenance of somatic symptoms. It may be that behavioral interventions could be more effective if augmented with specific parenting strategies. The current study examined ways in which different parenting styles (e.g., authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive) relate to somatic symptoms in adolescents experiencing anxious or depressive symptoms. Understanding parenting styles and how they relate to somatic symptoms in adolescents is important in designing or improving interventions for these patients. Participants were 141 middle school adolescents, aged 11- to 15-years, with a mean age of 12.33-years (SD = 1.22). Male participants made up 43.3% of the sample. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire packet, with up to 20 students participating at one time. Portions of the questionnaire examined for this study included data from the Youth Self Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and the Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1991), both of which have been shown to have adequate reliability and validity. Mediational analyses were performed (Baron & Kenny, 1986), followed by bootstrapping analytical methods to determine significance of the mediation effect. Authoritarian Parenting Style (AP) was a significant predictor of Somatic symptoms above and beyond Anxiety Problems, ß = .15, p = .04. The inclusion of Authoritarian parenting style into the model resulted in a combined 39% of variance in Somatic Problems, overall R = .63, p < .001. When controlling for AP, the beta weight for Anxiety problems dropped from .62, p < .001 to .58, p < .001. Permissive Parenting Style and Authoritative Parenting Style were not significantly associated with Somatic Problems. Although AP, characterized by high levels of control and low levels of warmth, was not a full mediator in the current analyses, it was a significant predictor of somatic complaints for adolescents in this sample. This finding provides support for the addition of parenting-based interventions for children who have anxiety, and in particular, have somatic symptoms. Interventions that target both the individual adolescent and their families could have positive impacts on number of medical visits, school attendance, and distress experienced by these adolescents. Future research should explore such interventions.