Background: The importance of early relationship with parents has been stressed by most personality theorists. Deprivation of the nurturing influence can lead to an adverse impact.
Aim: To study the effect of early parental loss in the development of adult psychiatric disorder.
Methods: A total of 289 soldiers suffering from assorted ICD-10 identified psychiatric disorders were studied to ascertain parental losses during their developmental period. The findings were compared with those of 127 patients drawn from general medical wards.
Results: A higher percentage of psychiatric patients had lost their parents before the age of 18 years compared with medical patients (21.5% vs. 8.7%). The difference, which was highly significant, was due to bipolar disorder to some extent and alcohol dependence syndrome to a larger extent. Loss of the father appears to be more significant than loss of the mother. Parental loss is found to be not a significant factor in depression and neurotic disorders. There is no excess of maternal loss in cases of depression.
Conclusion: This study indicates that parental loss is a significant factor in the future development of psychiatric disorders. It does not appear to be an important factor in the development of neurotic disorders. The aspect requires comprehensive evaluation.
Keywords: Parental loss; alcohol dependence syndrome; bipolar disorder; psychiatric disorders.