ABSTRACT
Evaluated a 15-month social support intervention for mothers of children with JRA. Five mentors (mothers of young adults who have had JRA since childhood) were linked to mothers of children with JRA ages 2 to 11 for purposes of enhancing specific types of social support and overall mental health. The total number of reported mental health symptoms decreased in the experimental group and remained the same in the control group. The experimental group showed greater improvement on all indices of support relative to the control group. Trends in the data consistently favored the experimental group, but differences between the experimental and control group were statistically significant on few of the outcome measures. Results provide tentative evidence for positive effects of mentoring interventions for this population of parents.
Subject(s)
Adaptation, Psychological , Arthritis, Juvenile/psychology , Mothers/psychology , Sick Role , Social Support , Adolescent , Adult , Child , Child, Preschool , Family Therapy , Female , Humans , Male , Self-Help Groups , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
Examined direct and mediated relations between condition parameters and maternal mental health for 53 mothers of 2- to 11-year-old children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA). Multivariate analyses revealed that when considered simultaneously, indices of both biological severity and functional severity were associated significantly with maternal mental health. Further, mother's appraisals of the impact of the child's illness on the family partially mediated the effects of medication type and child's functional status on mother's mental health. Results provide support for conceptual models that emphasize the cognitive mechanisms by which condition parameters such as biological and functional severity might affect maternal mental health. Explicating the processes by which a child's JRA might lead to psychological adjustment problems in the parent has implications for developing preventive and treatment interventions.
