Determinants of Expressed Emotion in Families of Disturbed and Normal Children

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Abstract
– Both high expressed emotion (EE) and psychiatric disorders were frequent in the parents of children and adolescents with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD, N= 34) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD, N = 49) compared to normal controls (NC, N = 41). Parental psychiatric diagnosis was significantly related to high-EE in fathers (p= .0002) and mothers (p= .0001) of all groups combined, and in parents of the ill groups (p = .03). Absence of diagnosis was associated with low-EE in fathers (p = .0006) and mothers (p= .04) of the controls. Psychiatric diagnosis was the only significant predictor for high-EE in fathers, while for mothers child's diagnosis was a stronger predictor.