The relationship of parenting style to self-reported mental health among two subcultures of Chinese

Abstract

The results of this investigation with 127 youths (aged 16–22 years) from mainland China supported the association of recalled parent's styles (assessed by the EMBU) with adolescents' self-evaluated health status (measured by the SCL-90). Many psychosomatic symptoms and lower scores on indexes of general mental health were significantly related to higher levels of parental rejection and denial, punishing tendency, overprotection and overinvolvement and to lower levels of parental emotional warmth and comprehension. The association between parenting style and mental health status of adolescents can be generalized across genders and across the two Chinese subcultures studied (Han and Kejia ethnical groups) with moderate to fairly high confidence. The mental health status of participants suggests some differences between different subcultures or genders on several variables of the SCL-90.