Kvebæk Family Sculpture Technique and FACES III in the evaluation of families of children with newly diagnosed rheumatic diseases

Abstract

The Kvebaek Family Sculpture Technique (KFST) and FACES III were administered to 92 parents of children with recent (median, 7 months) onset of rheumatic symptoms. A computer-based quantification of the KFST results led to the definition of four family configuration types: close, hierarchic, unspecified, and skewed configurations. The types differed with regard to chronic family difficulties and the psychosocial functioning of the primary patient. Comparisons of the families of mothers who did (n = 23) and did not (n = 69) want a change of the family configuration showed that the families of mothers wanting a change differed with regard to configuration types, distance variables, and psychosocial characteristics. The distribution of families scoring in the balanced and extreme ranges on FACES III did not differ from the American norms. There was a linear association between mother's cohesion scores and mother's childhood, chronic family difficulties, and mother-father distance on the KFST. The findings sug...