El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar la estabilidad de las actitudes de los familiares de esquizofrénicos recogidas en el constructo emoción expresada (EE). Para ello, se evaluó la EE en un grupo de 32 familias de esquizofrénicos mediante la Camberwell Familiy Interview (CFI; Brown, Birley y Wing, 1972; Vaughn y Leff, 1976b)), repitiendo la evaluación a los 9 meses. Los resultados obtenidos indican que la EE es estable en los padres, mientras que en las madres parece que la alta EE está influida por las situaciones de crisis, ya que si se evalúa la EE en crisis no es estable y en los períodos intercrisis sí lo es. Estos resultados se comentan y valoran en relación con las intervenciones familiares dirigidas a reducir la EE, en las que debería tenerse en cuenta que la EE de las madres puede bajar por su inestabilidad, no por la intervención. Por otro lado, se debería incidir especialmente en los padres dado que la alta EE es constante y por lo tanto provoca estrés al paciente durante el seguimiento.

IntroductionSleep is essential for children´s emotional and cognitive wellbeing. Different sleep variables (sleep-wake characteristics/habits/disorders) are associated to Internalizing and Externalizing problems.Objectivesto analyse parent´s perception about different sleep variables and Internalizing and Externalizing behavior problems, in a sample of Portuguese school children, exploring associations between these variables.Methods100 parents/legal representatives of children (range = six to eleven years old) filled in a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Sleep-Wake Children Questionnaire and the Child Behavior Checklist 6-18 (CBCL).ResultsMost children took about ten minutes to fall asleep and did not wake up during the night. Some children were afraid of sleeping in the dark and needed the presence of a light (possible dyssomnia) and/or of a transitional object to fall asleep. During the night some children grind their teeth (possible parasomnia). The subscale with the higher T mean value was Isolation/Depression and the global dimension with the higher T mean value was Internalizing Problems. Most children had a 'normal” score in every CBCL subscales. Isolation/Depression presented more 'borderline” cases and Aggressive behaviours presented the highest number of children in the clinical category. The global dimension showing a higher number of clinical cases was Internalizing Problems. Generally, several sleep variables were significantly associated to behavior problems.DiscussionSeveral associations were found between sleep habits/problems and behavior problems, particularly Internalizing problems. It seems important to create prevention/intervention programs to educate parents on sleep and behavior, to improve sleep habits and reduce the presence of sleep and/or behavior problems.