Abstracts

There is some evidence that fear of seizures in adults with epilepsy has a negative impact on social and vocational adjustment. In the pediatric population, however, parental fear of seizures may have a more pronounced impact on social adjustment by altering the parent-child relationship. The goal of this study was to examine the impact of maternal fear of seizures on maternal overprotectiveness and adaptive functioning in children with seizures and to identify factors that are associated with higher levels of maternal axniety about seizures.
A questionnaire to assess parental fears about health and social issues related to epilepsy was developed. The questionnaire was administered to 133 parents of children with epilepsy and was found to have excellent internal consistency with a Chronbach[apos]s Alpha of .912 and a single factor accounting for 83% of the variance. The questionnaire was then administered at each visit to 55 mothers of children between the ages of 6 and 12 with newly diagnosied epilepsy who were participating in a larger longitudinal study involving two visits, the first within six months of diagnosis and the second a year later. At each visit the mothers also provided medical and demographic information and completed questionnaires assessing family stress, maternal trait anxiety, maternal coping resources and degree of overprotectiveness as a parent. In addition, the Vineland Scales of Adaptive Behavior was administered to assess each child[apos]s level of adaptive functioning.
At the first visit, maternal fear of seizures had a significant relationship with an overprotective parenting style (r = .36). A year later the relationship was stronger (r = .66). Those mothers who were more fearful were also more likely to have children who had more poorly developed adaptive skills in the socialization (r = .47) and daily living skills (r = .42) domains. The relationships with adaptive skills continued to be significant a year later. A number of factors were associated with higher levels of maternal fearfulness. There was a strong correlation between seizure frequency and fear of seizures (r = .71). Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationships between characteristics of the mother, the family and fear of seizures at each time point. At the initial visit, only family stress and coping resources remained in the model, accounting for 32% of the variance in fear of seizures. A year later, family stress no longer had a significant relationhip with fear of seizures. Maternal fear of seizures was, instead, associated with coping resources and trait anxiety, which together explained 30% of the variance.
The findings from this study suggest that epilepsy can have an indirect effect on a children[apos]s development by changing the nature of parent-child interactions and that specific factors increase the liklihood that the relationship will be altered..
[Supported by: Blue Bird Circle Foundation]