Children With Cerebral Palsy And Family Functioning In Greece And Italy

ABSTRACT

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a serious disorder that affects a person’s life, their parents, and the entire family. CP’s impact on the family is long term, complex, and multifactorial. This study explored family functioning in families raising children with CP in Greece and Italy. A total of 120 married parents participated in the study: 60 mothers and 60 fathers who had biological children with CP. All families were nuclear. A self-report questionnaire, a semi-structured interview, and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES-III) were used for data collection. Results highlighted that parents had a different comprehension of CP, presenting a variety of positive and negative family characteristics. The existence of CP in families was reported primarily as a full and ongoing engagement. Parents, in both countries, perceived the real and ideal functioning of their families as balanced. This represents healthy family functioning, according to the revised edition of the Olson Circumplex Model. Findings suggested parents had distinct notions about CP and a variety of views on family functioning, which were estimated to be functional.

KEYWORDS:

• Cerebral palsy (CP)
• parents
• family functioning
• Greece
• Italy

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the generous help and support in data collection provided by the Department of Orthopaedics Pediatrics and Paediatrics Department, University of Athens, University Hospital of Athens, Attikon (Athens), Greece and the Department of Orthopaedics Pediatrics and Neuro-orthopaedics, University of Milan, Humanitas Research Hospital, Rozzano (Milan), Italy. She would also like to acknowledge the families who participated in the study.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.