Psychological Reactions: Parents of Children With Life Threatening Illness

This article review will look at a research study that was conducted to determine more precisely what were the effects on parents who were recently given a diagnosis relative to their child that was potentially life threatening. As one might imagine, this can be a stressful situation for any parent. While a reaction that was based on acute stress might seem to be common sense, the research set out to study the phenomena in a systematic way.

Main Findings

At four weeks following a child's diagnosis of a serious illness, 49 -- 54% of parents met DSM-IV criteria for acute stress disorder, across a number of illness groups, whereas 15 -- 27% of parents were in the moderate/severe range for depression and anxiety, and 25 -- 31% for stress. Results from this study demonstrate that rates and severity of these psychological reactions in parents of seriously ill children do not vary according to illness type (Muscara, et al., 2015).

Research Problem, Hypothesis, and Questions

The research outlines the situation which has led to the research aims of this study by briefly providing a background of the previous research that has been conducted in the field. There is no surprise that parents who have children that have a life threatening illness can experience psychological duress. Some studies have also shown that the psychological reactions are present regardless of the specific form of illness that was diagnosed in the child. Furthermore, previous studies have also found that the initial effects of the psychological trauma that was incurred can also be long-lasting and persist indefinitely. The researchers also identify a research model that has been used in previous efforts known as the Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress Model (PMTSM) which is defined as (Muscara, et al., 2015):

"a useful framework in which to understand the development and trajectory of psychological disorders in parents associated with child medical trauma, and in identifying the optimal time for treatment."

Results using this model have indicated that the factors related to the early reaction that the parents have when learning about the diagnosis can be effective predictors of the long-term implications of the responses.

Based on the previous research, the researchers in this study frame their problem statement as (Muscara, et al., 2015):

"it remains unclear as to whether specific child illness types confer different risk on parents for...
...

Only a very small number of studies have examined psychological reactions in parents across different medical conditions simultaneously"
For example, the severity of the illness and the degree of the potential for mortality could differentiate different groups. For example, a parent who has learned of a child's cancer diagnosis may react (on average) statistically different from another individual with a slightly less threatening illness (such as a brain injury). So this particular study sets out to investigate these relationships, and whether illness-specific consequences exist for parent mental health following their child's diagnosis of serious illness/injury, will assist healthcare providers to identify and treat these mental health issues appropriately, and prevent the development of more serious and chronic mental health problems (Muscara, et al., 2015)". Having a better understanding between the factors and how they relate to each other could be used to help parents under duress and address many social problems related to these circumstances.

The studies formal hypothesis is also provided and reads as:

"We hypothesized that there would be no differences across childhood illness groups with respect to the levels of parent acute traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and general stress symptoms, given that all illness types posed a threat of mortality and morbidity for the child. Our secondary aim was to investigate the relationship between symptoms of acute traumatic stress, and symptoms of depression, anxiety and general stress in this cohort of parents. We hypothesized that there would be a significant association between these symptoms within our cohort."

Variables

The IV is: Children's medical factors (illnesses or injuries)

The DV is: Parent's psychological reactions

The children's medical factors consist of the type of illness and the severity. The parents' psychological reactions will be recorded in terms of standard stress and depression tools that are available. Both variable seem to make sense in this case based off the literature review that is provided.

Sampling

This paper reports the results from wave one of a prospective, longitudinal study; the Take a Breath study, which is being conducted at the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH), Melbourne, Australia; a state-wide, tertiary, pediatric hospital treating seriously ill children. Data…