Family Adaptability, Cohesion and Anxiety During Pediatric Hospitalization: Differences between Populations of Immigrant and Non-immigrant Origin

Abstract

Different investigations have proved the existence of anxiety and emotional alteration in parents during the hospitalization of a child. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential association between some aspects of family functioning and emotional alterations. It’s centred concretely in parents’ anxiety during the hospitalization of a child, looking for differences between parents of immigrant and non-immigrant origin. Methods. One hundred and ninety one parents, aged 23 to 53, participated in the study. All of them had a child hospitalized in pediatric units in hospitals of Andalucía, Spain. Anxiety was measured with the Spanish version of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and family functioning with the brief Spanish version of the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES). Results. A better family functioning is significantly associated with lower levels of anxiety in parents during pediatric hospitalization. Immigrant origin parents were found to have considerably higher anxiety, higher family cohesion and also higher adaptability scores. Multiple regression analyses revealed that family cohesion and origin (immigrant/non-immigrant) explain significant variance in the anxiety scores of parents’ of hospitalized children.