Life events, coping styles, and psychological well-being in children living with parents who harmfully consume alcohol.
INTRODUCTION
Children living with parents who harmfully consume alcohol might experience more life events, in particular negative, than children living with parents who do not harmfully consume alcohol. They also primarily use less adaptive coping styles and often demonstrate lower resilience. No studies evaluated whether coping styles or psychological well-being might influence the risk of life events occurrence in children living with parents who harmfully consume alcohol.


METHODS
Forty-five children living with parents who harmfully consume alcohol and 45 children living with parents who do not harmfully consume alcohol, matched for sex and age, were assessed via the Appendix Life Events of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, and the Psychological Well-Being scales.


RESULTS
Children living with parents who harmfully consume alcohol had more life events in the 6-month period before the assessment, mostly negative and neutral, and lower levels of psychological well-being than children living with parents who do not harmfully consume alcohol. The risk of having experienced at least one negative or neutral life event was higher in children living with parents who harmfully consume alcohol than in their peers and in those with lower psychological well-being. The risk of having had a positive life event was not related to parents' consumption of alcohol but to avoidant coping and low self-acceptance behaviours.


CONCLUSIONS
Children living with parents who harmfully consume alcohol need interventions aimed at improving psychological well-being to protect them from life events, especially from negative ones.
['Iacopetti|Cinzia|C|', 'Londi|Ilaria|I|', 'Patussi|Valentino|V|', 'Sirigatti|Saulo|S|', 'Cosci|Fiammetta|F|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5022-0488']
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000437:Alcoholism D005260:Female D006801:Humans D007558:Italy D008016:Life Change Events D008297:Male D001523:Mental Disorders D010287:Parent-Child Relations D010290:Parents D055500:Resilience, Psychological D012306:Risk D055815:Young Adult
life events coping psychological well-being resilience children of alcoholics