ABSTRACT
Background: Families of children with disabilities otherwise experience higher stress; and relation between parenting styles and coping of children is well known. Parental factors and family functioning may play a role in shaping the child, especially having issues like SLD. The objective is to study was coping strategies of children with SLD, parenting styles of their parents, their family functioning and relation of these with each other.Methods: It is a cross-sectional study undertaken after Institutional Ethics Committee approval, parent's consent and child's assent. Participants were 100 consecutive children, diagnosed with SLD, 9-13 years of age. Tools used were: Semi-structured proforma, Parenting Practices Questionnaire, Family Assessment Device and Children's Coping Strategies Checklist Revision 1.Results: Authoritarian parenting style was significantly was associated with less use of 'active' and 'support seeking'; and increased use of 'distraction' and 'avoidance' strategies. High scores on Authoritative style was associated with 'active' and 'support seeking' strategies. Avoidance coping strategy was associated with poor (high scores) and active coping strategies with higher (low scores) on problem solving, communication, and general family functioning.Conclusions: Parenting practices and family functioning can be pivotal in determining child's attitude and coping. Assessment of this can be routinely included in child evaluation.
ABSTRACT
Background and Objectives: Depression is a common psychiatric illness. The illness can present as asimple sadness to a major depressive disorder or even bipolar disorder. It is also found to affect childrenand adolescents. The aims and objectives of our study were, to assess the phenomenology, family factors,quality of life and functional status of children and adolescents with depression.Methodology: Subjects diagnosed with depression, before 18 years of age, were recruited in the study.Parents and children were interviewed. Demographic details were taken. Scales i.e. Children DepressionInventory, Family Assessment Device, The PedsQL core generic scale and Children's Global Assessmentscale were applied.Results: Females had slightly higher scores on CDI. On using Pearson’s correlation test significantcorrelations were found between the Family Assessment Device and PedsQL scale and CDI scale.Conclusion: In the population under study, the family functioning was found to be unhealthy in familiesof girls with depression, versus families in which boys had depression. Overall depressive features were lessin families with better affective responsiveness and affective involvement. In families who did not useproblem solving as coping, somatic complaints were more. Better expression of emotions and behavioralcontrol, was found in families having clear role definition