Family Management Style and Psychosocial Health of Children with Chronic Conditions

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the associations among variables related to the sociocultural context (including social support, parenting stress, and parents’ perceived severity of their child’s condition), the ease or difficulty of family management, and psychosocial outcomes of children with chronic conditions. This cross-sectional study analyzed a convenience sample of 277 parents of children with chronic diseases who had been receiving follow-up care for at least 6 months at a university hospital located in a metropolitan area. Family members answered a questionnaire on demographics, illness characteristics, perceived severity of the child’s chronic condition, social support, the Parenting Stress Index, the Pediatric Symptom Checklist, and the Korean version of the Family Management Measure (FaMM). The six scales of the FaMM were divided into two domains, corresponding to ease and difficulty of family management, respectively. PASW version 18.0 and AMOS version 22.0 with bootstrapping analysis were used. Social support, parenting stress, and perceived disease severity significantly affected both ease and difficulty of family management. Sufficient social support, low parenting stress, and a less severe chronic condition of the child were associated with ease of family management. Both ease and difficulty of family management explained 73.9% of the variance in children’s psychosocial problems and showed significant direct effects. Care plans for chronically ill children and their families should be designed to promote positive aspects of family management by decreasing parenting stress and enhancing social support, thereby making family management easier and reducing the risk of psychosocial problems in children with chronic conditions.