Behavioral differences in families with and without a child with asthma: Testing the psychosomatic family model

William Griffin, Jennifer Parrella, Sonia Krainz, Suzanne Northey

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recently, Northey et al. (1998) reported equivocal support for the Psychosomatic Family Model based on their analysis of parent interaction patterns in 20 families having a male child with asthma and 20 families having a male child without asthma. We extend their work by first examining the child response patterns in the same families and then, using family-level data, develop a hierarchy of behavior patterns that discriminates between family types. Among asthma families: children were more likely to intrude into marital conversations that lasted longer than two talk turns, this was associated with higher marital quality, and marital dyads were more likely to solicit children into parent conversations and their children were more likely to respond. At the family level, clear pattern differences were found - children in asthma families are more active in parent discussions, and asthma family parents have higher contingencies for agreement. Marital quality did not consistently predict child involvement.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)226-255
Number of pages30
JournalJournal of Social and Clinical Psychology
Volume21
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2002

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology

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