The relationship between behavioural problems in preschool children and parental distress after a paediatric burn event

Abstract

This study examines mother-and father-rated emotional and behaviour problems in and worries about 0-to 5-year-old children at 3 and 12 months after a burn event and the relation with parental distress. Mothers (n = 150) and fathers (n = 125) representing 155 children participated in this study. Child emotional and behaviour problems and parental worries about the child were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist at both time points. Parents' level of acute subjective distress was assessed within the first month after the burn event with the Impact of Event Scale. Mothers and fathers held comparable views of their child's emotional and behaviour problems, which were generally within the normal limits. Parents' own acute stress reactions were significantly related to parent-rated child behaviour problems at 3 and 12 months postburn. A substantial part of mothers' and fathers' worries about the child concerned physical and emotional aspects of the burn trauma, and potential future social problems. Parents with high acute stress scores more often reported burn-related concerns about their child at 3 and 12 months postburn. Health-care professionals should be informed that parents' distress in the subacute phase of their child's burn event may be related to subsequent worries about their child and to (parent-observed) child emotional and behaviour problems. The authors recommend a family perspective, with particular attention for the interplay between parents' distress and parent-reported child behaviour problems and worries, in each phase of paediatric burn care.

Health-Related Quality of Life in adolescent survivors of burns: Agreement on self-reported and mothers’ and fathers’ perspectives

“…In both mothers and fathers, emotional health and parental concern reports showed to be significantly interrelated with traumatic stress levels, and concur with previous results revealing an association between parental concern and stress symptoms [21]. The suggestion that the psychological state of the parents may color the judgment of their child negatively emphasizes the relevance of including adolescent self-reports in clinical practice, where possible.…”

“…The scars which are directly linked to the burn event may act as a reminder and therefore may play a role in parental observations [20]. Moreover, parental traumatic stress symptoms were also observed to be associated with a higher level of burn-related concerns in the parent [21]. Therefore, we hypothesize that parents with higher traumatic stress levels overreport the problem level relative to the adolescent's report, which may be especially the case in relation to the appearance scale.…”

Dysphagia and feeding difficulties post-pediatric ingestion injury: Perspectives of the primary caregiver

“…Consistent with the current interviews, prior research has found parents report several physical, social, and psychological impacts following traumatic injury to a child [45]. Studies examining parental stress following thermal burn injury report parents experience significant guilt from one to ten years' post-injury to their child, depending on injury severity [46]. Undesirable impacts of child injury can also extend to the wider family unit.…”

Child and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems 12 months postburn: the potential role of preburn functioning, parental posttraumatic stress, and informant bias

“…These studies generally showed no differences between burn-injured children and the normative population [ 6 – 9 ]. Also, specifically in young children (i.e., 0–4 years), cross-sectional as well as prospective studies indicate that the levels of internalizing and externalizing problems in the long term do not deviate substantially from normative groups [ 10 – 12 ]. Nevertheless, a proportion of children (3–13 %) is indicated to experience clinically significant behavioral problems, but factors that play a role in the development of internalizing and externalizing problems are not well understood.…”