Abstracts

Rationale: Parents of children with chronic illness, including epilepsy, worry about their child which can affect parent/child interactions and parening skills. To better understand parent’s response to their child’s illness, we developed the Parent Response to Child Illness Scale (PRCI). The purpose of this paper is to describe the PRCI’s psychometric properties for a sample of parents of children with new-onset seizures. Content for items were developed based on a review of the literature related to parenting a child with a chronic illness and open-ended interviews with parents of children with new onset seizures. A total of 38 items were generated for potential inclusion in PRCI. Items were revised based on recommendations of five content experts. Methods: The PRCI was tested in a 24-month longitudinal study of adaptation to epilepsy in children with new onset seizures and their families. Data collected at 3 months and 6 month at seizure onset were used for this analysis. Subjects were 224 parents of 116 girls and 108 boys (aged 4 to 14) who had their first recognized seizure within the past 6 weeks (M = 35 days). Exploratory factor analysis identified five factors: Child Support, Family Life/Leisure, Condition Management, Child Autonomy, and Child Discipline. The subscale scores were calculated as the mean of all items in each factor. Results: Reliability: Internal consistency reliability was assessed using coefficient alphas and item-to-total correlations from the 6-month data collection. Internal consistency reliabilities were as follows: Child Support (.76), Family Life Leisure (.84), Condition Management (.79), Child Autonomy (.60), and Child Discipline (.71). Data from the 3 month and 6 month data collections were explored for stability by calculating intraclass correlation coefficients. Intraclass correlation coefficients were as follows: Child Support (.62), Family Life Leisure (.48), Condition Management (.44), Autonomy (.74), and Discipline (.73). Three of the factors had coefficients in the good range indicating good test-retest reliability or stability over the 3-month period. Validity: We explored relationships between the five PRCI factors and related constructs (parent mood, perception of stigma, information about seizure condition, parent worry, and child behavior problems). Pearson’s correlations showed significant, moderate relationships in the predicted direction between subscales and related constructs. Conclusions: Psychometric testing of this scale provided empirical evidence for its reliability and validity in this sample of children with epilepsy. Although the scale was developed to be used as a research instrument, it may also be useful in the clinical setting. If clinicians suspect adaptation to epilepsy problems, this scale may provide direction for clinical intervention.