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Mothers' resolution of their children's diagnosis: Organized patterns of caregiving representations
Author(s) -
Pianta Robert C.,
Marvin Robert S.,
Britner Preston A.,
Borowitz Kathleen C.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0355(199623)17:3<239::aid-imhj4>3.0.co;2-j
Subject(s) - cerebral palsy , psychology , developmental psychology , cognition , epilepsy , pediatrics , clinical practice , psychiatry , clinical psychology , medicine , family medicine
In this paper we examine mothers' representations of one form of trauma to the caregiving system: the experience of receiving a diagnosis of a chronic illness or disability in their child. An interview and classification system was used with 91 mothers of children ages 15–50 months with cerebral palsy or epilepsy. Mothers were classified as Resolved or Unresolved with respect to their child's diagnosis and grouped into subcategories within these major groups. Roughly half of these mothers were classified as Unresolved with respect to their child's diagnosis. Diagnosis type, severity of condition, developmental age, and time since receiving diagnosis were all unrelated to the distribution of Resolved/Unresolved classifications. Patterns of resolution in which cognitive strategies predominated were the most frequent form within the Resolved classification. Findings provide support for the organizational nature of caregiving representations as well as a number of implications for clinical practice.