The supporting weekend's meeting of families with CF children

Since 1977 3 day-weekend's working meetings have been repeatedly organized for the families with CF children. Several times 97 families comparising 187 parents and 182 children--(of these 101 child patients aged 4-17 years)--took part in them. For one meeting 11 complete families are invited. The working weekend's meeting of complete families (WWM) connects in itself the advantages of parental, thematically oriented discussion group and the principles of psychotherapy by means of modelling. For establishing the program of parents' groups, first of all the level of knowledge on CF was tested by the questionnaires. Other questionnaires contained both the expectation of parents and their evaluation of the psychotherapy. The aim of WWM is: 1. to improve the knowledge of parents about disease, 2. to correct wrong ideas on the disease, 3. to learn both parents the therapeutic rehabilitation, 4. to enable an open discussion between both parents and between parents and health personnel, 5. improving family functions by means of stimulations for free time of the family and 6. to catalyze the reproductive decision of the family if the parents are in fertile age--to inspire the planning of a new family on the basis of the method of prenatal diagnosis. CF is chronic, lethal, genetically conditioned disease. The complex therapy of CF patients enables to prolong their life often up to the adulthood. At the same time the possibility of prenatal diagnosis in CF decreases the risk of birth of another affected child in the family.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)