ABSTRACT
Indicators of family care for development are essential for ascertaining whether families are providing their children with an environment that leads to positive developmental outcomes. This project aimed to develop indicators from a set of items, measuring family care practices and resources important for caregiving, for use in epidemiologic surveys in developing countries. A mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) design was used for item selection and evaluation. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted to examine the validity of candidate items in several country samples. Qualitative methods included the use of global expert panels to identify and evaluate the performance of each candidate item as well as in-country focus groups to test the content validity of the items. The quantitative methods included analyses of item-response distributions, using bivariate techniques. The selected items measured two family care practices (support for learning/stimulating environment and limit-setting techniques) and caregiving resources (adequacy of the alternate caregiver when the mother worked). Six play-activity items, indicative of support for learning/stimulating environment, were included in the core module of UNICEF’s Multiple Cluster Indictor Survey 3. The other items were included in optional modules. This project provided, for the first time, a globally-relevant set of items for assessing family care practices and resources in epidemiological surveys. These items have multiple uses, including national monitoring and cross-country comparisons of the status of family care for development used globally. The obtained information will reinforce attention to efforts to improve the support for development of children.
ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the effect of family care on incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder after the first chemotherapy of cancer patients.Methods According to the assessment score of Family APGAR Index,67 cases of diagnosed cancer patients with chemotherapy for the first time were divided into bad family function group and good family function group.Then all the patients were assessed by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder questionnaire(PTSD-SS) and the results were statistically analyzed.Results Among the 67 patients,the APGAR score between 0 to 6 points were 28 cases,account for 41.79％ ; 7 to 10 points were 39 cases,account for 58.21％.The score of good family function group was (4.52 ± 1.27) points,the score of bad family function group was (3.86 ± 1.23 ) paints,the difference was significant ( t =2.13,P ＜ 0.05 ).As to the PTSD-SS total score and various factors' scores,the good family function group were higher than that of bad family function group,the difference was significant (P＜ 0.01 or ＜ 0.05).Cancer patients' APGAR score appeared to be negatively correlated with PTSD-SS score(P＜ 0.01 or ＜ 0.05).Conclusion The family care index of cancer patients is closely related to their psychological stress,good family function is better psychological stress level is lower.