Paternal reactions to a child with epilepsy: uncertainty, coping strategies, and depression

This paper reports a study examining the stress that fathers experience when caring for a child with epilepsy. A seizure, which is frightening and potentially damaging, creates uncertainty about its possible effects and threatens the integrity of family systems. In the Chinese social context, epilepsy is stereotyped 'sudden craziness' of people and affected family feel shamed by the diagnosis. When a child has epilepsy, the stereotype of epilepsy affects the family experience in terms of stress and their coping process. Few studies have focused on how a father with an ill child adapts to family stress. This study was based on the resiliency model of family stress, adjustment, and adaptation, and was designed to examine the relationships among fathers' uncertainty, coping strategies, and depression. From three teaching hospitals in Taiwan, 210 fathers were recruited. A pilot study was conducted to establish the reliability and face validity of the Chinese language version of the Coping Health Inventory for Parents. Results showed that paternal uncertainty was negatively associated with the total Coping Health Inventory for Parents score for family coping patterns for factors I, II, and III. Uncertainty and coping strategies for factors II and III were indicators of paternal depression and accounted for 10.3% of the total variance. The results give insight into the unique family stress that fathers experience as a result of the interaction between the social context of a child with epilepsy and the family's coping patterns. They also suggest ways to improve family-centred nursing interventions to help parents establish effective caring patterns to manage the family stress.