Abstract

PECANHA, Dóris Lieth; PICCININI, César Augusto  and  MILLAR, William Stuart. A comparative study about mother-child interaction with groups of asthmatic, congenital heart disease and healthy children. Bol. - Acad. Paul. Psicol. [online]. 2015, vol.35, n.88, pp. 181-196. ISSN 1415-711X.

Mother-child interaction has been extensively examined by theoretical, empirical and clinical studies. Nonetheless, to date little has been reported about the impact of childhood chronic illness on mother-child interaction. A chronic childhood illness is a medical condition that is long term or permanent, is rarely able to be completely cured and is doubling in prevalence. Thus, the objective of this study was to compare mother-child and stranger-child interaction in different childhood health conditions using micro analytic coding of videotaped mother-child interactions. Two groups of children (M age = 4 years) suffering from chronic illness: asthma and congenital heart disease (CHD) were compared with a group of healthy children in a sequence of videotaped play interaction with the mother and with a stranger. The findings revealed significant differences in the mutual interaction between mother and the asthmatic child compared to the heart disease and healthy groups. Mothers of the asthmatic group were significantly more directive of their child in the play situation compared to the other groups. There were no differences among the three groups of children when interacting with the stranger. The findings suggest that there are specific dynamics associated with asthmatic child-mother dyads

Keywords : Mother-child interaction; asthma; heart disease; childhood chronic illness.

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