Parenting stress and family structure facing children’s idiopathic epilepsy

Parenting Stress was found to be associated with children with the diagnosis of a chronic condition, such as epilepsy. However the percentage of parents feeling stressed differs across studies that have examined this relationship (Dewey & Crawford 2007; Plant & Sanders 2007). Literature (Ferrari et al., 2004) highlighted several areas of family adjustment, suggesting that families of children with epilepsy have great difficulties, but to our knowledge no studies investigated the relation between family organization and parenting stress. This study aimed to assess the presence of the association between idiopathic epilepsy and parenting stress and to individuate if family’s cohesion and adaptability, based on Olson’s Circumplex Model (Olson, 2011), were associated with specific perceived parental stress. The sample was composed of 85 parents (43 male, MAge = 45.26 SD = 12.69; 42 female, MAge = 44. 29, SD = 3.90) of children with the diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy. Measures: The family adaptability and cohesion evaluation scale (FACES IV), to assess family functioning in terms of high and low flexibility and cohesion, clustered into six different family patterns: cohesion balanced, flexibility balanced, disengaged, enmeshed, rigid, chaotic; The Parenting Stress Index—Short Form (PSI-SF), to investigate parental stress. Results confirmed that in families dealing with the disease of idiopathic epilepsy high level of parental stress was related to overcontrol (r= .36, p < .05) and to disorganization (r = .41, p < .01) in the family structure, as these families are less flexible and less cohesive, which turns into an increased level of parental stress. These considerations are very important in the context of interventions. Helping these families to experience a more flexible and cohesive family structure can also decrease the level of parental stress, promoting a better quality of life of parents and children.