Social environment in families of children with juvenile arthritis

Abstract

The Family Environment Scale (FES) was used to study 50 families of children with juvenile arthritis (JA). The FES was administered to all family members over age 10. Interpersonal relationships among family members were evaluated by the cohesion, expressiveness, and conflict subscales of the FES, and personal development was indexed by the FES independence subscale. The family scores in each subscale were compared with normative data from 1,125 families from the San Francisco Bay Area comparable with study families in age, education, number of children, and socio-economic status. No significant differences (t tests) were found in family cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, or independence in families of children with JA compared with control families when using the FES. These data do not support the hypothesis that psychosocial distress in families precedes or inevitably results from development of arthritis in a child.