Psychosocial Impact and Parental Stress in Families of Children With Severe Neurological Disorders and Intellectual Disabilities: A Cross-Sectional Study.
Blanca Egea-Zerolo, Ana Berástegui, Julio C De La Torre-Montero and 5 others
PMID 41725534WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children with severe neurological disorders and intellectual disability reported higher stress and more disruption to daily family life when the child also had psychological or psychiatric problems or conduct disorder.
Key findings
01The clinical characteristics most strongly associated with parental stress and family impact were conduct disorder and psychological or psychiatric problems.
02When psychological or psychiatric problems were present, 50.0% of children also had conduct disorder, compared with 7.0% when they were absent.
03Parents of children with conduct disorder reported higher stress and discomfort, with Cohen's d = 1.27 for each subscale.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
All responding parents were members of a support foundation, so families not connected to such services may be underrepresented. Data were collected online, which may have limited participation by families with lower digital literacy. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that conduct disorder or psychological problems caused stress. The analyses were exploratory and included many correlations, which can make some significant findings unreliable. The sample size did not allow multivariable models to separate the contribution of each psychosocial dimension. There was no comparison with families without children with disabilities.
Declared interests
The authors report no funding and no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that treating conduct disorder or psychological problems will reduce parental stress. The study was cross-sectional and measured associations at one time point, not the effects of an intervention.