Role Identification and Mental Health Functioning of Children of Alcoholic

Abstract

Alcoholism is a family disease that renders the individual and the family dysfunctional. Children or adult children of alcoholics assume certain roles to deal with the chaos in the family. Thus in order to assess the roles of the children an indigenous scale was constructed and validated namely Role Identification Scale. Factor analysis revealed a four factor (the Hero, the Aggressor, the Withdrawn and the Mascot). RIS was found to have adequate psychometric properties. Moreover, General Health Questionnaire was used for the assessment of screening and severity of mental health functioning. The main study comprised of 400 adult children of alcoholic fathers (50% Male and 50% Female) between ages 18-25 (M 21.45, SD 2.37) and matric as the minimum level of education were administered RIS, GHQ and a demographic questionnaire. Results indicated that the two roles namely the Hero and the Mascot were strong negative predictors of mental health problems and the other two 19 roles namely the Aggressor and the Withdrawn were found to be positive predictors of mental health problems. Results are discussed in terms of gender differences and their implication for rehabilitation and counseling for a collectivistic culture.