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The Family and the Child with Epilepsy
Author(s) -
FERRARI MICHAEL,
MATTHEWS WENDY S.,
BARABAS GABOR
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1983.00053.x
Subject(s) - psychosocial , affect (linguistics) , psychology , developmental psychology , psychiatry , family therapy , epilepsy , clinical psychology , communication
Reports documenting psychosocial epiphenomena of chronic illness in individuals with that illness have been common in recent years. Few studies, however, have been concerned with how illness might affect the family. Those that have appeared in the literature often lack critical controls (i.e., control groups) and often fail to investigate possible links between illness‐specific variables (i.e. chronicity, inhibition of mobility) and psychosocial outcomes on the family. The present study of 45 families focused on how children with epilepsy affect their families' functioning relative to families with a child with diabetes and families with no chronically ill members. The results suggest several areas of child and family adjustment (i.e. child self‐concept, family communication, family cohesion) in which the families of epileptic children have great difficulty. Implications of these results are discussed with regard to differential influences of various chronic illnesses on families and family‐based preventive and remedial treatment programs.