Relationship of family management with sociodemographic aspects and children's physical dependence in neurological disorders.
Gisele Weissheimer, Verônica de Azevedo Mazza, Vanessa Ferreira de Lima and 3 others
PMID 30462788WHAT IT FOUND
Families of children with neurological disorders who needed help with daily activities reported higher management effort, family difficulty, and disease impact.
Longer specialist care was also related to higher difficulty and impact.
Key findings
01Longer time receiving specialist neurology care was associated with lower child's identity scores and higher management effort, family difficulty, and perceived disease impact.
02Families of children or adolescents dependent in daily activities reported higher management effort, family difficulty, and perceived disease impact; families of independent children reported higher child's identity and management ability.
03Sixty-five percent (n=93) of the children and adolescents were dependent in at least one daily activity; 84% (n=79) needed help with grooming and 81% (n=76) with hygiene.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that longer specialist care or daily-activity dependence causes family management problems. The sample was non-probabilistic and came from one child neurology centre, so it may not represent other families or services. Most respondents were mothers, so family management was not analysed from the perspective of fathers or other family members. The article reports some associations with social grants, but the text and Table 5 give opposite directions for those comparisons. The study measured family members' perceptions and did not test any intervention.
Declared interests
The study is based on a master's thesis and was financed in part by CAPES (Finance Code 001). No other conflicts of interest are stated.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that daily-activity dependence or longer specialist care causes family management problems. The study measured associations at one time in a non-probability sample and did not test any intervention.