Parent-child communication about congenital adrenal hyperplasia: Filipino mothers' experience

ABSTRACT

@#<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>BACKGROUND:</strong> Family communication facilitates coping a genetic condition by ensuring accurate understanding of the illness,its inheritance pattern,associated recurrence risk and risk perception.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>This paper explores Filipino mothers' experience in communicating information about congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) to their children.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>METHODS:</strong>Descriptive qualitative design was used.families affected with CAH were recruited  via a CAH support group.Semi-structure interview with mothers were done on the following topics:content and understanding information  communicated,reasons for communicating,and changes and adjustments in the family.Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>RESULTS:</strong>Five families consisting 11 individuals ,including four mothers,were interviewed.finding revealed that while mother are open to communicate with their child about CAH,this is often triggered by question from the child.Mother find it challenging to discuss about the condition  and when they do discuss,this is most often done to facilitate better understanding among the siblings.There is an attempt to explain inheritance of CAH but this is also limited to the mother's understanding.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>CONCLUSION:</strong>The findings of the study provide guidance to health professional on how they can support parents,particularly mothers,in discussing CAH with their children.</p>