Factors affecting parents’ reactions to their child’s illness
- Parental reactions
- Factors affecting parents’ reactions to their child’s illness
- Seriousness of the threat to the child
- Previous experience with illness or hospitalization
- Medical procedures involved in diagnosis and treatment
- Available support systems
- Personal ego strengths
- Previous coping abilities
- Additional stresses on the family system
- Cultural and religious beliefs
- Communication patterns among family members
- Overall sense of helplessness
- Questioning the skills of staff
- Accepting the reality of hospitalization
- Dealing with fear
- Coping with uncertainty
- Seeking reassurance
- Sibling reactions
- Experiencing many changes and being too young to understand them
- Being cared for by nonrelatives or outside of the home
- Receiving little information about the ill brother or sister
- Perceiving that parents will treat the sick child differently
