Chronically ill children and their mothers: predictors of resilience and vulnerability to hospitalization and surgical stress.

Although the responses of normal children to hospitalization and surgery are well documented, an understanding of base rates of upset, the mediating factors involved, and the efficacy of interventions with chronically ill children has not yet been achieved. Using self-report and observational measures, we investigated the effects of hospitalization and surgery on 40 physically handicapped children and their mothers. The results suggest that, compared with normal children, chronically ill children as a group are not more likely to become disturbed. With regard to individuals, extremely high and low parenting stress, over-involved parent-child relationships, fewer previous surgeries, and younger age predicted greater disturbance. Mothers of developmentally delayed children reported feeling more anxious than mothers of children with normal mental ages, but no differences were found on child vulnerability.