PMID: 9429344Jan 1, 1997Paper

Parents' coping with a diabetic child

Hoitotiede
S M SeppänenMerja Nikkonen

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe and understand the process of parental coping with diabetic children in early childhood. The parental coping process was followed for a four-week period after the diagnosis of diabetes. The parents of two girls whose diabetes was diagnosed in early childhood served as study subjects. The data were collected by interviewing and observing the parents over four separate periods, first in hospital and later at home. The data were analyzed by the timeseries and content analysis methods. The main categories were formulated on the basis of coping theories. The subcategories were developed inductively from the data. Six phases of the parental coping were identified, which were named: 1). Disbelief, 2). Lack of information and Guilt, 3). Learning of Care, 4). Normalization, 5). Uncertainty and 6). Reorganization. In the different phases of parental coping the parents' experience of stress, coping strategies and sense of control varied. In the phase of Disbelief, parents tried to explain away the child's diabetes by questioning the diagnosis. The initial information given to the parents regarding their child's diabetes proved to be very important for parental coping. In the second phase of Lacking...Continue Reading

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Autoimmune Diabetes & Tolerance

Patients with type I diabetes lack insulin-producing beta cells due to the loss of immunological tolerance and autoimmune disease. Discover the latest research on targeting tolerance to prevent diabetes.