EFFECTS OF A DIABETIC CHILD ON MARITAL INTEGRATION AND RELATED MEASURES OF FAMILY FUNCTIONING.

Previous work suggests that chronic illness in one family member may affect the relationship between other members. Specifically, the onset of diabetes in a pre- adolescent child, examined here, may affect his parents' marital relationship. Pour independent measures tested the hypothesis that the marital integration of parents of diabetic children would be significantly lower than that of parents of matched non- diabetics. Results were statistically significant on two measures; in the predicted direction on the other two. it is suggested that diabetes is a crisis situation, intra- familial in origin, and thus has negative effects on family relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]