Parental style, adolescent children and hepatic transplantation

The biological, psychological and social developmental changes that occur during adolescence place the transplanted adolescent at an even higher risk of non-adherence and poor outcome than other age groups. Our aim is check whether parenting style influences the post-liver transplant outcome after liver transplantation. Participantsand Methods: Exigency and responsiveness scale was applied to 30 liver transplanted adolescents and young adults (12-30 years old). Chi square test was used to correlate frequency of parental style with adherence, clinical rejection and rejection in biopsy. Results: 57% parents were classified as authoritative or responsive.13/30 were non responsive, which were further sub classified as negligent 30%, permissive 10% and authoritarian 3%. There was no significant difference in parenting style comparing the compliant and noncompliant groups (X2 = 0.52, p = 0.37), as well as between groups with and without clinical rejection (X2=0,34, p=0,42) and between groups with and without biopsy proven rejection (X2=0,81, p=0,30). Conclusions: Parenting style had no influence in adherence, clinical or biopsy proven rejection in this group of young patients that underwent liver transplantation. Since compliance and rejection may be modified by multiple factors, a larger sample analyses would be necessary to confirm these data.