The psychological aspects of parents who take care of children with chronic illnesses: A Review of the literature

Abstract

Introduction: Nowadays, chronic diseases in children are constantly increasing. Parents have a crucial role in taking care of their children as they are responsible to fulfill their needs. This situation aggravates their psychological state. Purpose: To study the psychological effects of parents who take care of children-adolescents with chronic diseases which don’t belong to the category of rare diseases or psychiatric disorders. Methods: This literature review was conducted with data retrieved from two electronic databases, "Pubmed" and "Google Scholar". The research lasted from December 2021 to September 2022. Results: For this literature review 1433 studies were retrieved while after further analysis 32 studies were used. As a result, parents of children with chronic illness experienced the feeling of anxiety, fear, depression and emotional burden, affecting their quality of life to a large extent. Conclusions: Families caring for a child with a chronic disease were characterized by a burdened psychological state and a low quality of life, which was influenced by socio-demographic, economic and psychological factors. It was deemed necessary to provide more effective support to these families as well as to develop tools for the treatment of chronic disease.