Relationship Between Parental Dysfunctionality and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Adolescents in Bungoma County, Kenya

Florence Ambayo, Psy.D. Candidate; Michelle Karume, DMFT; Michael Kihara, Ph.D., United States International University – Africa (USIU – A)

Abstract

This study therefore sought to examine the relationship between parental dysfunctionality and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among adolescents in Bungoma County Kenya. A total of338 participants were recruited for the study comprising of 169 adolescents and their parents/guardians also numbering 169. The average age of respondents was male 16.8 ± (SD:1.704) for the adolescents and 44.0 ± (SD: 11.74) for the parents/guardians. The gender distribution of the participants was 72% females (N = 121) and 28% males (N = 48) among the adolescents; and 60% females (N=101) and 40% males (N=68) for the parents/guardians. Parental dysfunctionality was assessed in terms of parental Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), parental alcohol use and PTSD. Results from this study indicated that 63.3% of the parent respondents reported experiencing some form of IPV. The most prevalent form of IPV was psychological abuse at 56.8%, followed by emotional abuse at 34.9%, physical abuse at 32.5% and sexual violence at 21.3%. The prevalence of alcohol use disorder was at 4.8% and alcohol dependency was at 3.6%. The prevalence of parents’ PTSD was at 73.4%, out of which 39.6% had high severity of PTSD and 33.7% had moderately high PTSD symptoms. Findings from this study also showed that prevalence of adolescents PTSD was 80.4% where 40.2% of the adolescents presented with high severity of PTSD and 40.2% with moderately high PTSD symptoms. Pearson correlation test was used to test the correlation between the two variables. The result showed a significant relationship between parental PTSD scores and presence of IPV (r = .301, p < .002). However, there was no significant correlation between the parental dysfunctionality markers and adolescent PTSD (p > 0.05). This showed that parental dysfunctionality does not relate to adolescent PTSD. This present study concluded that existence of IPV was associated with higher chances development of PTSD among parents/guardians however, parental dysfunctionality was not associated with higher scores of adolescents’ PTSD.

Keywords: causal relationship, parental dysfunctionality, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and adolescents, intimate partner violence and parental alcohol use.