Anxiety and Depression in Adolescents in Relation to Parenting Style

Adolescence is a formative period of emotional and psychological development, during which individuals are particularly susceptible to mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression. These internalizing disorders are not only prevalent but often inadequately addressed, especially in adolescents. One crucial yet frequently overlooked environmental determinant of adolescent mental health is parenting style, which profoundly shapes an adolescent’s emotion regulation, self-concept, interpersonal relationships, and coping mechanisms in the face of stress. The present study examines how different parenting styles i.e. authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive impact anxiety and depression levels among Higher Secondary school students. Seventy-two Higher Secondary students were administered Parenting Style Questionnaire (PSQ) developed by Robinson and Mandelco in 2001 to assess the style of parenting such as authoritative, authoritarian and permissive to which they were exposed along with Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A) to measure their anxiety and Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D) to measure depression. Group difference was tested by means of ANOVA followed by Post hoc analysis. Results of ANOVA revealed significant differences in anxiety and depression scores of the participants exposed to the three parenting styles. Results of post-hoc analysis, on the other hand, revealed that with respect to anxiety and depression, the difference between participants under authoritarian and permissive parenting as well as authoritative and permissive parenting was significant, whereas, the difference between the participants under authoritarian and authoritative parenting was not significant. Results of chi-square analysis further showed that parenting style was significantly associated with the categorical levels of both anxiety and depression. More specifically, maximum participants under authoritative parenting style showed the lowest level of anxiety and depression, while maximum participants under permissive parenting showed the highest level of both anxiety and depression. In the context of the social system and the cultural background of the state of Odisha, the finding of the present study that authoritative parenting style is associated with slightly better mental health compared to authoritarian parenting style and much greater mental health compared to permissive parenting style adds to the findings of cross-cultural literature on parenting styles and mental health issues of adolescents. The implication of the findings have been discussed in the context of socio-cultural set-up of the state of Odisha suggesting that high priority is to be given to authoritative parenting for helping adolescents to smoothly transit to adult life.