Stability of memories of parental rearing among psychiatric inpatients

Information about childhood experiences, particularly parental rearing beha viour, is of importance in the clinical investigation of psychiatric patien ts and in research. As concerns assessment among adult individuals, it has the shortcoming that these data are exclusively retrospective by nature imp lying the risk of various biases. An influence of mood states, mostly depre ssion, onto autobiographical memories has been established in different stu dies on the background of mood-dependent recall. Investigations by Gerlsma et al. have shown the independence of memories of parental rearing behaviou r of significant changes in depressed mood. A consecutive sample of 162 psy chiatric inpatients, mainly unipolar depressives, were investigated at admi ssion and discharge by means of the EMBU (perceived parental rearing), the BDI and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale in the present study. The results underline once again the high stability of reported parental rearing behavi our during significant clinical changes in severity of depression and more specific of depressive disorders during changes in dysfunctional attitudes. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.