In an explorative study, a clinical sample of 53 schizophrenic patients was examined. The EMBU inventory was used for measuring perceived parental rearing practices, the AfS for rating the quality of relationship to key relatives and the U-Scale for assessing social anxiety. The findings obtained were intercorrelated and compared with 3 selected parameters of disease severity: age at first hospitalization, number of treated episodes and length of hospital stay. The results suggest that the quality of contact with key relatives is determined to a larger extent by the schizophrenia than by parental rearing attitudes. Rearing behaviour more likely influences the age at first hospitalization and social anxiety, whereas considering the length of face-to-face contact, the quality of the relationships between patients and their key relatives can be assumed to be associated with the duration of hospital stays.