Children Families And Chronic Disease

Chronic childhood disease brings psychological challenges for families and carers as well as the children. Roger Bradford explores how they cope with these challenges, the psychological and social factors that influence outcomes and the ways in which the delivery of services can be improved to promote adjustment. Drawing on concepts from health psychology and family therapy, the author proposes a multi-level model of care which takes into account the child, the family and the wider care system and how they interrelate and influence each other.

This book, drawing on theoretical and practical sources, acknowledges the potential for distress involved in caring for a sick child but also emphasizes the coping resources and skills that can be, and frequently are, adopted by families.

Originally published in 1975, this book traces the problems which arise for families coping with a chronic childhood disease – cystic fibrosis. The discussion of these problems is important for the families of other seriously ill or disabled children, all of whom are faced with similar implications of their situation. The book looks at the stressful situations which face them: mastering the child’s treatment technique, assisting them to come to terms with their disease. It deals with the practical problems which arise for the parents and siblings of a sick child and explores the profound repercussions of the loss of a child on the entire family, considering the ways in which many of these families managed to transcend their problems.

The author draws extensively on the published research findings in child health psychology, and also on her own experience of working with pediatric medical and nursing staff. The emphasis throughout her book is on coping, and helping families to cope, with the stresses imposed by chronic childhood illness. Frequent hospital admissions, pain and its evaluation and control, adjustment and sources of support, communication, education and programs for intervention, all of these topics are discussed sensitively and with authority.

Synthesizes the nursing research literature in health promotion of children, pediatric acute and chronic conditions, and children and families in the health care system.

Because chronic disorder is becoming an ordinary feature of family life and development, understanding its impact has become critical. This volume, and the conference proceedings it reports, represents a major effort to examine the family's response to chronic physical or psychopathological illness in one or more of its members. Recent data are revising our notions of chronic illness. Evidence is mounting that chronic psychiatric disorders reflect, in part, abnormalities of brain structure and function. In this sense, they are, in part, medical disorders. On the other hand, a number of traditionally labeled medical disorders produce a broad range of psychological symptoms and are exquisitely sensitive to psychosocial influences. Families undergo a complex process of adaptation during which their response to stress and their fundamental beliefs about learning and parenting change. These beliefs endure and are difficult to alter. By examining the processes in a wide range of chronic conditions, this volume helps to identify the common, underlying processes of adaptation. The first three chapters concern the families' responses to disorders that are distinctly medical; the next three focus on families' responses to "grey zone" disorders or anomalies that appear early in life, minor physical anomalies, and communication handicaps; and one chapter focuses exclusively on schizophrenia. The last chapter reflects an effort to develop a model based on the experience of researchers with both psychiatric and medical illness.