Psychological symptoms in children and adolescents with phenylketonuria and investigation of variables for parents with phenylketonuria children

This thesis mainly aims to explore; (1) the relationship between the psychological symptoms of children with phenylketonuria and their perceptions on themselves and their disease; and (2) the relationship between the parents of the children with phenylketonuria and their psychological problems and the perception of the disease. Participants of the research are formed with 66 children aged between 10 and 18 years with diagnosed early with phenylketonuria and who are in a regular treatment regimen and 118 parents with children with phenylketonuria. At the beginning of the field study, firstly, parents were asked to fill out the demographic information form and consent form respectively, and also all parents were adminstered with the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ), Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI), and Strenghth and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). All children were adminstered with the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ), Social Comparison Scale (SCS), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and Strenghth and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Parents' perceptions of illness and the psychological and behavioral problems that they stated for their children were investigated with the multiple regression analysis. Both the relationship between children's perception of illness and their psychological symptoms, and the relationship between their perception of illness and their self-perception were analyzed by simple regression analysis. Overall, the findings of this thesis are as follows; (1) the child's perception of illness is related to 13% of his/her's negative self-perception; and (2) it is related to 18% of his/her psychological symptoms. (3) Parents' perceptions of illness and the emotional problems that they stated for their children are related 18% with each other. Moreover, with the additional analysis performed in this thesis, it was revealed that mothers' perception of the illness is related with the children's perceptions of illness. Findings have once again revealed that the family dynamics are important while addressing phenylketonuria. It has been shown that the perception of illness is a vital variable for both children and their parents.