Effects of a Diabetic Child on Marital Integration and Related Measures of Family Functioning

Abstract

Previous work suggests that chronic illness in one family member may affect the relationship between other members. Specifically, the onset of diabetes in a preadolescent child, examined here, may affect his parents' marital relationship. Four independent measures tested the hypothesis that the marital integration of parents of diabetic children would be significantly lower than that of parents of matched nondiabetics. Results were statistically significant on two measures; in the predicted direction on the other two. It is suggested that diabetes is a crisis situation, intrafamilial in origin, and thus has negative effects on family relationships. How the illness of one member of a family affects other members and relationships among them is a question which has been explored in various ways and by various disciplines recently. Chronic or long-term illness as a rule can be viewed as, effecting a change in the relationships between the ill person and other members of his social systems. Relationships within the social system of the nuclear family are effectively changed. The question raised in the present research is how diabetes mellitus in a child affects marital integration of the parents.1 Are parents of diabetic children, more than those of non-diabetic children, found to be more close to one another, agreeing more on the division of roles within the family and on goals of family life? Do they evidence less marital conflict than parents of the non-diabetic child or does the opposite relationship exist?