Perceived parental style, cognitive style, and resilience in females with dissociative disorder in India

BACKGROUND: Dissociative disorders are theorized to be caused by extremely stressful situations, including abuse, kidnapping, incest, rape, and other threats of death. Such childhood experiences alter one's cognitive style as well as one's ability to deal with adverse situations. It is important to understand how cognitive style influences the relationship between parental style and resilience to help in the management. We aimed to assess the relationship between perceived parental styles and resilience mediated by cognitive styles in females with dissociative disorder. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sample comprised 60 females between 18 and 50 years of age with dissociative disorder (International Classification of Diseases-10 criteria) in a cross-sectional observational study. Perceived parental style of the participant was assessed using s-EMBU, cognitive style using the Cognitive Style Inventory, and resilience using the Conner and Davidson's Resiliency Scale. Data were analyzed using Shapiro–Wilk to assess the normality of the data and Spearman rank correlation for determining the relationship between the variables. RESULTS: The results indicated a significant relationship between emotional warmth and systematic-cognitive style (r(s)= 0.398, P = 0.01) and between systematic-cognitive style and high resilience (r(s)= 0.256, P = 0.05). A significant regression equation was found (F[1, 58] = 9.146, P < 0.004), with an R(2)= 0.136 to predict systematic-cognitive style based on emotional warmth as the perceived parental style. To predict resilience based on systematic-cognitive style, a significant regression equation was found (F[1, 58] = 6.006, P < 0.017), with an R(2)= 0.094. CONCLUSION: The more emotional warmth was perceived by the participants, the more systematic they were in their perception of the environment, in turn being more resilient. The study findings help in establishing protective psychological factors in dissociative disorder.