Communication in the family of the asthmatic child. An experimental approach

Abstract

The literature is reviewed in order to see what support, direct or indirect, was to be found for adopting a communication perspective in gaining insight into childhood asthma. A study is presented on the communication (pattern and efficiency) of parents having an asthmatic child in a standardized communication situation in which a communication conflict is induced. Parents of children with severe chronic heart disease were used as control couples. As expected, the parents having asthmatic children proved to be a heterogeneous group with respect to communication efficiency. Two-thirds of the couples showed a communication as efficient as that of the control couples, whereas one third demonstrated an extremely inefficient communication in that they failed totally to cope with the experimentally induced communication conflict.