Improving parent and child adjustment to epilepsy using parental strategic self -presentation and emotional disclosure

Children diagnosed with epilepsy face several physical and psychosocial stressors which place them at greater risk for behavioral and emotional difficulties. Parents of these children play a significant part in whether or not their offspring will cope successfully with or be negatively affected by their condition. By helping parents cultivate a positive self-image of themselves as successfully coping with their children's epilepsy they may be better equipped to deal with subsequent everyday challenges. Forty-five parents of epileptic patients at a major children's hospital were placed into one of three conditions: self-presentation, emotional disclosure, or information giving. Individuals in the self-presentation condition discussed, in a videotaped interview, the skills and coping resources they rely on to deal with certain negative aspects of their children's epilepsy. Patients in the emotional disclosure group discussed feelings related to their children's condition and coping with its associated stressors, also in a videotaped interview format. Individuals assigned to the information group watched an informational video regarding epilepsy. Parental adjustment was measured at baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up using measures of coping, family resources, anxiety, and parenting stress. Children's coping was also assessed using measures of coping, depression, anxiety, and self-perception. It was expected that parents in the strategic self-presentation condition would report decreased anxiety and parental stress and increased resources for management and ways of coping following the intervention. It was also expected that children whose parent participated in the strategic self-presentation intervention would be coping better and reporting fewer problems in their coping (e.g., anxiety, depression, negative self-perception) with epilepsy following the intervention. Contrary to expectations, individuals in the strategic self-presentation group did not evidence a significant decrease in stress and anxiety, nor did they show a significant increase in the number of resources or coping mechanisms. There was, however, a significant interaction between group and time. Upon closer examination of this trend, it was found that individuals in the emotional disclosure group evidenced a slight increase in anxiety after participating in the videotaped interview; however, at the three-month follow-up this group reported the lowest levels of parental anxiety. Children whose parents participated in the three groups were not significantly different from each other at either of the assessment periods. Furthermore, children across groups did not show a significant change on any of the dependent variables over time.