Parental attitude and adjustment to childhood epilepsy

Parenteral attitudes and adjustment to epilepsy were assessed for 50 parents of children aged 6 to 14 with epilepsy. Fishbein's Expectancy-Value Model of Attitude was used to assess parental attitudes. Parental adjustment was measured both by a self-report instrument and by an independent psychosocial assessment conducted by a psychiatric social worker. The major finding was a strong positive relationship (R = .67, p less than .001) between parental attitude and adjustment for the mothers. The attitude-adjustment relationship was not significant for the fathers. In addition, parental attitudes and perception of seizure control accounted for 60% of the variance in the mothers' adjustment scores. Seizure control was significantly positively related (p less than .05) to parental adjustment.