1. Childhood Epilepsy and Asthma: A Test of an Extension of the Double ABCX Model.
- Author
-
Austin, Joan Kessner
- Abstract
The Double ABCX Model of Family Adjustment and Adaptation, a model that predicts adaptation to chronic stressors on the family, was extended by dividing it into attitudes, coping, and adaptation of parents and child separately, and by including variables relevant to child adaptation to epilepsy or asthma. The extended model was tested on 246 children (126 with epilepsy and 120 with asthma, ages 8-12), using data gathered in interviews and questionnaires involving the children, their mothers, and their school teachers. Structural equation modeling was carried out to test the model's relationships. Coping and adaptation measures were treated as endogenous variables and family adaptive resources, demographics, family demands, attitudes, health condition, and school status measures were treated as exogenous variables. Moderate support was found for the variables proposed in the extended Double ABCX Model child adaptation to epilepsy or asthma. Child coping patterns were the strongest predictors of child adaptation at home and at school, and child's attitude was the strongest predictor of child self-concept. However, parental coping, demographic, and health condition variables accounted for essentially no variance in child adaptation. The model to predict child adaptation to epilepsy was more complex than the model for asthma in that more exogenous variables were retained. (14 references.) (JDD)
- Published
- 1990