Parenting Styles and Psychiatric Profile of Parents of Adult Substance Use Disorder Patients: Cross-sectional Study

The purpose of this Lebanese, cross-sectional, multi-centric study is to examine the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among adult patients with substance use disorder and their parents along with the predominant parenting style. A total of 100 patients suffering from a substance use disorder, and their parents (N = 127) were administered the translated Arabic version of the MINI to diagnose lifetime psychiatric disorders. The Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) in its translated validated Arabic version was filled by patients to detect the predominant parenting style. The least common parenting style reported was authoritative (25%). The parents’ prevalence of nicotine dependence, alcohol abuse and dependence, and illicit substance abuse and dependence were considerably higher than the general population. Mood and anxiety disorders were more prevalent among patients and their parents compared to the Lebanese general population. In the bivariate analysis, no significant association was found between the perceived parenting style (authoritative and non-authoritative) and parents’ economic (p = 0.545) and civil status (p = 0.231), patient’s gender (p = 0.390), birth order (p = 0.084), and parents’ and offspring psychiatric disorder. Hence, an underlying genetic and environmental mechanism could potentially explain our findings rather than a rearing problem; however, further studies with larger sample size are needed to confirm this hypothesis.