This study examines parental perceptions of the importance of grandparents as providers of routine care to children with disabilities and the impact of such assistance on parental well-being. Data are drawn from a survey and follow-up interactive…
This study of 124 parents of children diagnosed with cancer investigates parents' perceptions of their role in the illness situation. The study found that mothers and fathers differ in their experience of and response to parenting a child with…
The death of an adolescent is a particularly complex issue. The process of grieving and coping can be complicated by the tension that may have existed in the parent/child relationship because of the conflict in terms of personal ideology at this…
A retrospective, qualitative, preliminary study examined if parental involvement in a life-support withdrawal (LSW) decision impacts the perceptions and adjustment of parents whose child died in a pediatric critical care unit. Participants were…
Advances in the treatment of childhood diseases have created a population of technology-dependent and medically fragile children whose life expectancy is unknown and whose future quality of life is unpredictable. Seven commonly occurring events were…
A diagnosis of childhood cancer is an unexpected life event that often precipitates a situational crisis for all family members. Required cancer treatments and other ongoing stressors for both child and family will significantly disrupt the family's…
While chronic illness has a profound impact upon the individual, an immense burden is imposed upon the family. When the competing demands of an illness and the family escalate exponentially, there may be a crisis. Traditionally, crisis theory has…
Forty-seven mothers and 33 fathers, representing 48 families, participated in a propective longitudinal study of the effects on family members of a child's dying. The purpose of this article is to describe parents' health during the terminal illness…
To contribute to a better understanding of the utility of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90R; L. Derogatis, 1983) with bereaved samples, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on SCL-90R responses of 97 parents 2 years after the death of…
In most industrialized countries today, the death of a child is a rare phenomenon. When it occurs, however, it is usually within a hospital setting, after the child has received complex and often long-term medical care aimed at curing or controlling…
This follow-up study examined how bereaved couples' grief reactions change over time and how the quality of the marriage can predict these reactions for men and women. A group of 31 bereaved couples who 2 to 4 years earlier had lost an infant (…
This descriptive study used qualitative methods to look at two aspects of the search for meaning in parental bereavement--the search for cognitive mastery and the search for renewed purpose. One hundred and seventy-six bereaved parents answered…
The purpose of this article is to provide data on a recently developed instrument to measure the multidimensional nature of the bereavement process. In contrast to widely used grief instruments that have been developed using rational methods of…
The impact of the deaths of 19 children from malignancy on subsequent patterns of maternal and paternal coping styles was evaluated in a retrospective study of Dutch parents. The parents had been bereaved on average for 19 months. Parental coping was…
The present paper describes a cross-sectional study of the psychosocial adjustment of 143 children with severe disability and their families identified from a regional case register for children with special needs. Thirty-eight per cent of the…
Crisis theory, stress and coping theory, and research on parental stress and coping during pediatric critical care experiences are integrated into a conceptual framework for understanding, assessing, and ultimately intervening to reduce parental…
Surveyed 32 people (average age 63 yrs) whose homes were damaged or destroyed by a fire immediately after the fire and 1 yr later, to examine the prediction that finding positive meaning in that traumatic event would be associated with better coping…
Monte Carlo methods were used to systematically study the effects of sampling error and model characteristics upon parameter estimates and their associated standard errors in maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis. Sample sizes were varied…
This investigation addressed the question of whether mothers and fathers have different problems during a child's fatal illness. A study of 145 parents of children who were treated for cancer or blood disorders at a large urban pediatric hospital and…
Methodological problems make it difficult to determine whether or not the rate of separation or divorce among families caring for a child with a chronic life-threatening illness such as leukemia, spina bifida, or cystic fibrosis is higher than…
A review of the literature provides the basis for a discussion of the impact of sibling death on healthy children whose emotional needs may be unattended both by parents and professionals. Factors which may deter hospice practitioners from delivering…
This work evaluated the experiences of 45 parents of children with cancer and 101 cancer patients with their home pastors and hospital chaplains. The satisfactions and difficulties encountered in these interactions are detailed, and recommendations…
This article identifies and lists the problems of children with complex medical conditions and/or complex home health case needs. Five categories of seriously chronically ill children are identified and programs to meet their needs discussed. The…
Foster parents in the child welfare system occupy a unique position in our culture. While expected to parent and provide safe, loving, and normative family experiences to a child removed from her/his family of origin, they are, simultaneously,…
This study focused on understanding spiritual issues addressed in parental accounts of losing a child and the therapeutic implications for helping professionals. Qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with nineteen parents concerning their…
Caring for a child with cancer is a demanding experience for both parents, yet most research focuses on mothers. In this paper, we present the findings of a secondary analysis of data from a study in which the care-giving experience of fathers is…
OBJECTIVES: To examine young people's and parents' accounts of communication about cancer in childhood. DESIGN: Semistructured interviews analysed using the constant comparative method. SETTING: Paediatric oncology unit. PARTICIPANTS: 13 families,…
BACKGROUND: Health professionals have a critical role in supporting bereaved parents and rely on models of grief to inform and guide their practice. However, different models, based on fundamentally different theoretical perspectives and research…
BACKGROUND: This paper examines the degree to which symptoms of anxiety and depression at age 14 years are associated with early childhood experience of maternal anxiety and depression, poverty, and mother's marital relationship distress and…
OBJECTIVE: To investigate effects of the timing of initial exposure to maternal depression and marital conflict on kindergarten children's mental health symptoms. METHOD: For 406 families (of 570 originally recruited), mothers reported on major…
It is well known that a sick child has a profound impact upon the family involved. What remains less clear is how that stress affects the partnership of the parents - their intimacy, health and wellbeing and who is responsible for supporting the…
AIM: To investigate the financial circumstances of families whose child had died after a long-term illness and the factors contributing to financial difficulties. RESEARCH METHODS: Qualitative exploration involved semi-structured interviews with a…
This study examined stress factors in families with a school-aged child with a disability. Path analyses revealed that children's demandingness and neediness for care was related more to maternal stress and that child's acceptability was related more…
Social consequences of raising children who were medically fragile and developmentally delayed (MF/DD) were explored in an ethnographic study of 20 families with school-age children. The overarching theme was the families' search for safety and…
The authors conducted a meta-analysis to examine the relations of benefit finding to psychological and physical health as well as to a specific set of demographic, stressor, personality, and coping correlates. Results from 87 cross-sectional studies…
In the current study, we investigated the psychometric properties of a Dutch translation of the posttraumatic growth inventory in a heterogeneous group of cancer patients. Its original five-factor structure was maintained. The internal consistency of…
Cluster analysis was performed on a diverse group of 69 non-clinical grievers whose loved ones died between 12-40 months prior to the study. Based on psychometric measures of both bereavement distress and growth, three distinct clusters emerged: High…
