Chronic Illnesses in Children and Their Effect on the Families

1044 Words3 Pages

Chronic Illnesses in Children and Their Effect on the Families

Approximately 10% to 15% of children under 18 years of age have a

chronic physical illness or condition and the number of children with

chronic conditions has increased substantially in recent decades. It

is obvious that chronic illnesses in children do have an immense

impact on the families of these children. There are many psychological

consequences for the sufferers, their siblings and their parents.

Firstly we start by briefly looking at other consequences apart from

the symptoms of their illnesses that the patients have to deal with.

Sean Phipps's research revealed a high occurrence of a repressive

adaptive style in children with cancer. To investigate whether

repressive adaptation in the population is premorbid or reactive,

adaptive styles were considered in children with cancer at the period

of diagnosis and at 6 months and 1 year after the diagnosis. Contrast

groups included healthy children and children with serious chronic

illnesses. At diagnosis children with chronic illnesses showed levels

of repressive adaptive style similar to the cancer group. These

results suggested a move towards repressiveness in reaction to the

diagnosis of chronic illnesses that is then kept constant over time.

Results also showed distress that the patients experienced due to

their illnesses. It is a given that patients would definitely

experience distress and also sometimes repression over their own

condition but what is not so obvious is the effect that it would have

on their siblings.

Barbara Leonard in 1983 conducted a study of 77 healthy siblings of

brothers and sisters w...

... middle of paper ...

... 44, no. 11B, 3360.

· Silver,-Ellen-Johnson; Westbrook,-Lauren-E; Stein,-Ruth-E-K, (1998).

Relationship of parental psychological distress to consequences of

chronic health conditions in children.

Journal-of-Pediatric-Psychology, Vol 23(1): 5-15.

· Roos,-Susan-Gail, (1985). Chronic sorrow: A living loss.

Dissertation-Abstracts-International-Section-A:-Humanities-and-Social-Sciences.

1995 May; Vol 55(11-A): 3645.

· Stuber,-Margaret-L, (1996). Psychiatric sequelae in seriously ill

children and their families. Psychiatric-Clinics-of-North-America.

1996 Sep; Vol 19(3): 481-493.

· Tak,-Youngran, (1995). Family stress, perceived social support, and

coping of family who has a child with chronic illness.

Dissertation-Abstracts-International:-Section-B:-The-Sciences-and-Engineering.

1995 Apr; Vol 55(10-B): 4624.

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