ABSTRACT

It is known that the temperament and personality features of parents of children with obsessive compulsive disorder show similarities to those of the adults with obsessive compulsive disorder. The aim of this study was to investigate the temperament and character features of mothers of children and adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder. The research included the mothers of 32 children and adolescents who were between 9 and 15 years old, consecutively admitted to the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic of Gulhane Military Medical Faculty and diagnosed to have obsessive compulsive disorder according to the DSM-IV-TR criteria. The control group consisted of the healthy mothers (without any psychiatric disorders) of 27 healthy children without any chronic disorders. The mothers were evaluated with the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). The impulsivity subscale score of novelty seeking was higher and the total self directedness and cooperation scores were lower in mothers of children and adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder than in those of the controls. Lower scores in novelty seeking were reported in adults with obsessive compulsive disorder, and no differences were found between parents of children with obsessive compulsive disorder and those of healthy controls in previous studies. The higher scores in impulsivity subscale score of novelty seeking we detected in our study point out the necessity of new studies in this area. Lower scores of self-directedness and cooperation may be related with the basic features of personality disorders. The existence of dimensional personality profile in the mothers of children and adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder highlights the importance of the role of personality factors in familial obsessive compulsive disorder.