Death of a child at home or in the hospital: subsequent psychological adjustment of the family

Abstract

Twenty-four families who had participated in a Home Care Program for children terminally ill with cancer and 13 families of similar children who had died in the hospital completed inventories on parent and sibling personality as well as family functioning three to 29 months after the child's death. Parents of patients who received terminal care in the hospital were more anxious, depressed, and defensive and had greater tendencies toward somatic and interpersonal problems than parents of patients in the Home Care Program. Siblings of patients who received terminal care in the hospital were more emotionally inhibited, withdrawn, and fearful than their counterparts in the Home Care Program. Although some group differences in parental personality may have antedated terminal care, these results confirm parental reports of more adequate family adjustment following participation in a structured Home Care Program.