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Development of children with a chronic illness
Insights
Children with chronic illnesses face medical, social, and emotional challenges impacting development. Healthcare providers must understand developmental risks to advocate for these children and support their transition to adulthood.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Health
Background:
- 5-10% of children experience moderate to severe handicapping long-term illness or disability.
- Chronic childhood illness poses risks beyond medical issues, including social, educational, and emotional difficulties.
- Illness can interfere with normal development, influenced by illness, child, and family factors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the developmental risks faced by children with chronic illnesses.
- To emphasize the importance of understanding psychological effects within a developmental framework.
- To underscore the role of healthcare providers as advocates for these children.
Main Methods:
- Review of developmental psychology principles applied to childhood illness.
- Analysis of the multifaceted impact of chronic conditions on child development.
- Examination of healthcare provider responsibilities in supporting affected children and families.
Main Results:
- Chronic illness presents varied and pervasive interferences with normal child development.
- Psychological effects of illness are best understood through a developmental lens.
- Optimal care requires knowledge of developmental risks and effective communication.
Conclusions:
- Healthcare providers have a responsibility to facilitate children's navigation of illness-related challenges.
- Understanding child development and illness impact is crucial for effective guidance.
- Supporting children with chronic conditions enables a stronger transition to adulthood.
Abstract:
About 5 to 10 per cent of all children have sometime during childhood a moderately to severely handicapping long-term illness or disability. These children are at risk, not only medically, but for complex social, educational, and emotional difficulties. The potential interferences with normal development imposed by a chronic illness are varied but pervasive, and depend on the specific characteristics of the illness, the child, and the child's family. There are known psychological effects of illness on a child, which can best be understood within a developmental framework such as that outlined above. Optimal health care of these children and families depends on a knowledge of the risks to normal development that are regularly faced by these children at each stage of their development. Physicians, nurses, and other health care providers have the opportunity to be powerful advocates for children with a chronic illness. We thus have a responsibility to facilitate these children's negotiation of the challenges and crises of childhood, so they may enter their adult years with strength and security. Such guidance requires an understanding of children's development and the impact of illness on that process, and effective communication with both children and families.
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