Psychological distress in young chilean adults exposed to parental alienating behaviors during childhood/adolescence

• Diego Portilla-Saavedra ^[1] ; Cristián Pinto-Cortez ^[2] ; Rodrigo Moya-Vergara ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad Católica del Norte

     Universidad Católica del Norte

     Antofagasta, Chile

     
  2. [2] Universidad de Tarapacá

     Universidad de Tarapacá

     Arica, Chile

     
• Localización: EJIHPE: European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, ISSN 2174-8144, ISSN-e 2254-9625, Vol. 13, Nº. 9, 2023, págs. 1707-1716
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The aim of this study was to analyze the psychological distress of young adults exposed to alienating behaviors during childhood/adolescence. Four hundred and sixteen adults responded to the online survey. A brief sociodemographic questionnaire, the Brief Symptom Scale, and a questionnaire on adverse childhood experiences were included. The analyses revealed that individuals who experienced one or more alienating behaviors exhibited higher levels of anxiety, depression, somatization, and overall psychological distress. Furthermore, even after controlling for the effect of other adverse childhood experiences, alienating behaviors had a significant impact on psychological distress in adulthood. This highlights an understudied aspect of alienating behaviors, i.e., their conjunction or parallelism with other adverse childhood experiences.