Mothers of Children With Chronic Health Conditions Face Depression
Mothers of Children With Chronic Health Conditions Face Depression
Oct. 15, 1999 (Atlanta) -- The fact that some mothers may become depressed when facing the burden of caring for a chronically ill child may not be surprising. But the contributing causes for that particular mode of depression are still being uncovered.
A new study published in the October issue of the journal Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics explores the link between mothers with critically ill children and depression, and how "role restriction" could cause that depression.
Role restriction, as defined in the study, measures the "degree to which mothers feel the demands of the parenting role control and dominate their lives, restrict their freedom, and hamper their attempts to maintain individuality."
Ellen Johnson Silver, PhD, head of the study conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, tells WebMD, "We have found in previous research that mothers of kids who had functional limitations that related to their chronic conditions had more psychological problems like depression, and I was interested in what some of the factors are that could account for that relationship."
The researchers examined material compiled for a previous study of 365 inner-city mothers who had children aged 5-8 with chronic health problems. The most predominant condition was asthma, but other conditions like heart disease and sickle cell anemia also were present.
"The study found that the mothers had high levels of depression, mothers with kids with functional limitations were worse off, mothers with kids with functional limitations also felt more of an impact on their role as mother, and negative feelings about that role were related to depression, but there wasn't really the connection among all those things that we expected to find," Silver tells WebMD.
Silver says many other factors could still come into play, such as the fact that these mothers lived with inner-city stresses like single parenthood, poverty, and low education. There are also other personal role adjustments that affect a mother's state of mind when caring for a chronically ill child -- unpleasant tasks like giving their children injections, Silver says.
She says that studies need to be "directly designed" to ask questions about these other "role strains." Finding specific causes of depression among mothers with chronically ill children could lead to "intervention, helping the mother deal with stress; it could be practical or emotional," Silver tells WebMD. "It could be a respite, or getting other people in the family to realize she's under pressure and needs help, or even if a mother has unrealistic expectations about what she can accomplish she may feel guilty about not being able to accomplish all those things, and she needs to understand [that] she's just a person."
Mothers of Children With Chronic Health Conditions Face Depression
Oct. 15, 1999 (Atlanta) -- The fact that some mothers may become depressed when facing the burden of caring for a chronically ill child may not be surprising. But the contributing causes for that particular mode of depression are still being uncovered.
A new study published in the October issue of the journal Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics explores the link between mothers with critically ill children and depression, and how "role restriction" could cause that depression.
Role restriction, as defined in the study, measures the "degree to which mothers feel the demands of the parenting role control and dominate their lives, restrict their freedom, and hamper their attempts to maintain individuality."
Ellen Johnson Silver, PhD, head of the study conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, tells WebMD, "We have found in previous research that mothers of kids who had functional limitations that related to their chronic conditions had more psychological problems like depression, and I was interested in what some of the factors are that could account for that relationship."
The researchers examined material compiled for a previous study of 365 inner-city mothers who had children aged 5-8 with chronic health problems. The most predominant condition was asthma, but other conditions like heart disease and sickle cell anemia also were present.
"The study found that the mothers had high levels of depression, mothers with kids with functional limitations were worse off, mothers with kids with functional limitations also felt more of an impact on their role as mother, and negative feelings about that role were related to depression, but there wasn't really the connection among all those things that we expected to find," Silver tells WebMD.
Silver says many other factors could still come into play, such as the fact that these mothers lived with inner-city stresses like single parenthood, poverty, and low education. There are also other personal role adjustments that affect a mother's state of mind when caring for a chronically ill child -- unpleasant tasks like giving their children injections, Silver says.
She says that studies need to be "directly designed" to ask questions about these other "role strains." Finding specific causes of depression among mothers with chronically ill children could lead to "intervention, helping the mother deal with stress; it could be practical or emotional," Silver tells WebMD. "It could be a respite, or getting other people in the family to realize she's under pressure and needs help, or even if a mother has unrealistic expectations about what she can accomplish she may feel guilty about not being able to accomplish all those things, and she needs to understand [that] she's just a person."
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