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[Differences in marital communication and parental attitudes between parents of healthy children and parents of children with type 1 diabetes].

AIM
The study investigated the differences between marital communication and parental attitudes in families of children with type 1 diabetes.


METHOD
Three instruments were used: Communication in Marriage Questionnaire--versions for self assessment and for the assessment of spouse, Parental Attitude Scale (SPR) by Plopa--versions for fathers and for mothers, and self-constructed questionnaire examining socio-demographic status. Two groups of parents (120 persons) from the Opole and Silesia regions were selected: the study group (30 mothers and 30 fathers, staying in marital union, who bring up a diabetic child with at least 5 year period of the disease), and the control group (30 mothers and 30 fathers, staying in marital union, who bring up their offspring with no chronic disease). The children were from 5 to 18 years old.


RESULTS
The analysis of the marital communication results indicated that the fathers of diabetics assess themselves to be less supportive towards their wives than the fathers from the control group. At the same time, they evaluate their wives' supportiveness, involvement and depreciation similarly to the fathers of healthy children and no significant differences were found between the groups of males in their partners' evaluation. Mothers form the study group evaluate themselves in terms of marital communication on an equal level as compared to mothers form the control group in all the three communication dimensions. However, they perceive their husbands to be less supportive and less involved in the marital relationship than the females from the control group do. Fathers of diabetics present a less accepting attitude towards their children than the fathers of healthy children. They also give their children more autonomy than the fathers from the control group and the mothers of diabetics, who are not different in this dimension from the mothers of healthy children. Diabetics' mothers accept their children less that the mothers of healthy children, but at the same time they are more protective towards their offspring than women form the control group. They are also more inconsequent towards their children than the fathers of diabetics and parents of healthy children.


CONCLUSIONS
Statistically significant differences were found in some dimensions of marital communication and parental attitudes between diabetics' fathers and the fathers from the control groups as well as between the two groups of mothers. This indicates that there may be a relationship between the child's chronic and marital communication, as well as between the child's disease and parental attitudes, and thus between the disease and the functioning of the whole family system.