Childhood chronic illness: prevalence, severity, and impact.

Pediatric Chronic Illness: Definition and Prevalence

Evolving notions of childhood chronic illness.

present an analysis of 3 cohorts of children spanning 1988 to 2006 included in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The authors report that the prevalence of several categories of chronic illness in childhood is increasing and that these conditions arise, continue, or resolve in a highly dynamic fashion. Both findings have important implications and raise a number of significant qu...

Researching chronic childhood illness: the example of childhood cancer.

OBJECTIVES To provide an overview of issues raised by conducting research in the area of chronic childhood illness, using the example of childhood cancer. METHODS This literature review used informal methods. RESULTS Children with cancer and their families may participate in a wide variety of studies in different research traditions, including social science studies, epidemiological, biolog...

Chronic Illness and Aging Section 3: Typology of Chronic Illness and Impact on the Family

Chronic illness is a term applied to a broad range of diseases that vary greatly both in their essential characteristics and the ways in which they affect the family system and its adaptive functioning. To understand the most critical ways a chronic disease affects not only the family system as a whole but also the individual family members, one must consider the key characteristics of both the...

Coping with chronic illness in childhood and adolescence.

Chronic illnesses and medical conditions present millions of children and adolescents with significant stress that is associated with risk for emotional and behavioral problems and interferes with adherence to treatment regimens. We review research on the role of child and adolescent coping with stress as an important feature of the process of adaptation to illness. Recent findings support a co...