Children at home on mechanical assistive devices and their families: a retrospective study.

Few assessments have been done of the influence of caregiver and family interactions on the developmental status of children discharged on mechanical assistive devices. The ages of the 25 children in this study ranged from 2-30 months. Seven were on apnea monitors at the time of the home interviews, and 18 had been off the monitors for 18 months or more. Mothers were administered six questionnaires: Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES III), Duke-UNC Functional Social Support Questionnaire, Families Coping Strategies (FCOPES), Self-Esteem Scale, Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment, and the Receptive-Expressive Emergent Language Scale (REEL). Results on the FACES III revealed that families were not rigid in adaptability; 61% were chaotic, and 33% were balanced. On the cohesion scale, 25% were disengaged, 30% were enmeshed, and 45% were balanced. On the FCOPES, and it's subscales, 36-40% of the respondents scored below the established norms. Social support was strongly correlated with Cohesion and Adaptability (r = .47, .67), HOME scores correlated with Self-Esteem (r = .47) and FCOPES Reframe scale (r = .45), and REEL scores correlated with Social Support (r = .47, .52). Path-analysis revealed two paths: help-seeking behaviors of the mother and the child-mother interactions.