Emotional Distress In Children Research Articles

EMOTIONAL DISTRESS IN CHILDREN OF HIGH‐CONFLICT DIVORCE

This study examines factors that contribute to the emotional distress of children whose parents experience an acrimonious divorce with conflict over custody and visitation issues. Information was gathered systematically from guardian ad litem reports on 105 children in order to explore the child's emotional distress in response to individual‐, parental‐, marital‐, and custody–related factors. Findings emphasize the impact of the level of marital conflict in predicting increases in the child's emotional distress. The child who witnesses domestic violence and experiences child malmatment suffers a powerful cumulative impact from these factors. which results in a steep increase in emotional distress symptoms. A cluster of relevantfactors taken jointly, including the level of marital conflict, violence against a partner or against the child, the parent's mental health, the child's medical condition, and the nature of visitation changes, all contribute signifcantly to the child's emotional distress.

Psychological adjustment of pediatric lung transplantation candidates and their parents

Investigated psychological functioning of 45 children and adolescents (ages 5 to 17 years) and their parents presenting at a major medical center for evaluation for lung transplantation. Patients completed self-reports, and parents completed measures on their children's behavior problems and emotional distress as well as on their own symptoms of distress. In general, children and their parents reported normal functioning on standard psychological measures. Few children fell in the clinically significant range, whereas 21% of mothers and 14% of fathers reported clinically significant levels of distress. Older children reported lower levels of depressive symptoms than younger children, and patients with cystic fibrosis manifested lower levels of internalizing symptoms than those with other pulmonary diseases. Findings demonstrate the resiliency of children and their parents facing a stressful point in the child's medical status and document the usefulness of psychological screening of patients and parents to identify those in need of clinical intervention.

Size, Detail, and Line Heaviness in Children's Drawings as Correlates of Emotional Distress: (More) Negative Evidence

This study examined the reliability and validity of three commonly used indicators of emotional distress in children's projective drawings--size, detail, and line heaviness--and assessed their relation to established objective and projective measures of childhood depression and anxiety. Participants were 80 child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients (53 boys, 27 girls; ages 6 to 16; M = 10.69, SD = 2.94). Although the present results indicated that these drawing indices can be assessed with very high reliability, they were not significantly associated with self-report or thematic projective measures of depression and anxiety. Age and defensiveness did not moderate the relation between the drawing indices and the non-drawing measures of emotional distress. The patterning of the intercorrelations among and within the drawing indices, projective stories, and self-report measures indicated greater support for the self-report measures, in terms of convergent and discriminant validity. This study did not support the continued use of these three projective drawing indices of emotional distress.

Chronic Pain and Emotional Distress in Children and Adolescents

Pediatric chronic pain continues to be relatively underinvestigated and undertreated. The objective of the present cross-sectional study was to investigate the emotional distress hypothesized to be concurrently associated with the chronic pain experience in children and adolescents. One hundred and sixty children and adolescents with chronic pain and their parents completed standardized assessment instruments measuring pain intensity, depressive symptoms, state anxiety, trait anxiety, general self-esteem, and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Consistent with the a priori Biobehavioral Model of Pediatric Pain, higher patient-perceived pain intensity was associated with higher depressive and anxious symptoms, lower general self-esteem, and higher behavior problems. The results are discussed in regard to preventing and treating pain and suffering in children and adolescents with chronic pain.

Preparing children for day surgery.

This study measured the effect of a group preoperative teaching program on the level of children's emotional distress during day surgery. The sample consisted of 30 children, ages 3 through 10, scheduled for elective surgery. One group attended a structured program and received procedural and sensory information within 2 weeks of their surgery. The other group did not receive this intervention. A t test identified significant differences between the groups. Children who attended the preoperative teaching program demonstrated less emotional distress than children who did not receive this intervention. These findings reinforce the positive outcomes of preoperative teaching programs that provide procedural and sensory information to children as preparation for day surgery.

The impact of family context, deviant attitudes, and emotional distress on adolescent drug use: Longitudinal latent-variable analyses of mothers and their children

This study examined the impact of family disruption, mothers' drug use, emotional distress, and somatic complaints upon their children's drug use, deviant attitudes, and emotional distress during early adolescence and also at late adolescence. Data were obtained independently from 557 mothers and their sons or daughters when the children were in Grade 7, 8, or 9. Data were collected again from the children 3 years later when they were in their late teenage years. Family Disruption and all of the mother constructs were significantly correlated in a positive direction. Mother Somatic Complaints and Mother Emotional Distress were not directly related to the child constructs; these effects were mediated through Family Disruption or Mother Drug Use. Mother Drug Use was significantly associated with their children's Drug Use, Socially Deviant Attitudes, and Emotional Distress during early adolescence. Mother Drug Use did not directly influence the child's qualities or behavior in late adolescence; these effects were mediated through the early adolescent constructs. Family Disruption was significantly related to the Child's Drug Use and Socially Deviant Attitudes during early adolescence and had a significant impact upon Emotional Distress at late adolescence. When all effects were considered simultaneously in a theoretically driven model, Socially Deviant Attitudes had the largest direct impact on early drug use, whereas the impact of the family context variables and the other child constructs on drug use was mediated through deviant attitudes. An alternate, competing hypothesis that child drug use generated child deviant attitudes was rejected empirically.

The measurement of children's sleep disturbances and somatic complaints following a disaster.

Child-victims of a lightning-strike disaster were interviewed and their mothers completed a checklist describing their adjustment in terms of sleep disturbance and somatic complaints. Results showed that a number of children experienced significant sleep and somatic problems and that, in keeping with this study's purpose, the checklist is a reliable and valid measure of children's emotional distress.

Resistance to psychological prophylaxis in hospital pediatrics

Summary 1. A fund of evidence indicates that improper hospital management often results in psychiatric disturbance. 2. Iatrogenic psychopathology is believed to be a major public health problem. 3. Many hospitals have taken steps to institute psychologically prophylactic management, but the number appears relatively few. 4. Though there is general agreement, either for mental health or humane reasons, on providing adequate psychological care of pediatric patients, hospitals do not develop and institute the necessary management methods for reducing children's fear and emotional distress to an absolute minimum. 5. If iatrogenic psychopathology is to be prevented, it seems necessary to inquire into and formulate the dynamics of the hospital resistance to modern psychological management and prophylaxis.