Comparing Mental Status of Offspring of Addicted and Nonaddicted Fathers

This study is on psychological states of children with drug addicted fathers in comparison with children with non-addicted fathers and comparing abnormal personality patterns of fathers and their relations to emotional and behavioral problems in their children. In part one, to opium-addicted clients from Mellat Doost Center with 2 to 5 years of addiction history who had children between 7 to 9 years old were selected. Then a control group was formed consisted of non-addicted people with no addiction history. This group was matched with clinical group in factors such as age, education and economical states of fathers and their wives. In the second part, abnormal personality patterns of fathers in both group were compared with each other and their relation to children problems were assessed. CBCL were used for children psychological assessment and personality patterns were determined by MCMI-II. Results show that children with addicted fathers have comparatively high scores on all emotional and behavioral dimensions. Comparison of personality patterns in clinical and nonclinical fathers illustrates that three abnormal patterns (antisocial, narcissistic and dependent) are more prevalent in addicted fathers. Examination of relationship between personality patterns of fathers and emotional and behavioral problems in children shows that:There is a relationship between antisocial personality pattern of addicted fathers and delinquency and aggression children. But control group, the relationship was between antisocial personality and aggression. There is a relationship between narcissistic personality pattern in addicted fathers and isolation, anxiety, depression and aggression in their children.Sadistic personality pattern of addicted fathers is related to social problem and aggressive behavior in children.Borderline and paranoid personality pattern in addicted fathers is related to social problems and aggressive behavior in children.