Comparison of adaptation period and adjustment level to disease, in juvenile diabetic children and in their families

This study imaginated to descriptive chronic illness which made soma traumatic reactions on family members and their effect on families psychological adaptation. People with diabetes as well as individuals in all stages of the disease and her caregivers is witnessed by. Due to the difficulties of coping with diabetes, diabetes in children are thought to be influenced by the people who provide care to adolescent. The purpose of this study is to examine the processes of children and adolescents? who diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and their families subjective perceptions of disease, levels of perceived social support and psychological symptoms of this disease as they live in harmony in terms of variables and to compare the two groups.This research is a descriptive and relational study of screening. Research sample consists of 130 adolescents that are diagnosed with type-I Diabetes for three years or less by four hospitals in İzmir which have children endocrine clinics and 130 parents who accompany them their routine maintenance. Children and adolescents are between the ages of 8-18 participated in this study, caregivers ages ranged from 19-59. Personal information form which includes information such as age, gender, Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), Disease-Oriented Subjective Perceptions of Parents Form and The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) are applied to parents. Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), Disease-Oriented Subjective Perceptions of Child-Adolescent Form and The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) are applied to children and adolescents.Data was transferred to SPSS 17.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for Windows) program package, analysis of variance, t-test, correlation analysis, one-way repeated measure analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. p< .05 was considered statistically significant.The study was realized with the diabetic children whose of 52% were girls, 48% were boys and their parents were 102 women and 28 men. Children are diagnosed approximately 10 years old. 122 parents expressed that they were married. There are 78 families which has 2 children. Most of parents?relatives have not diagnosed of type-I diabetes. Children expressed that they perceive more significant social support level than their parents; but their psychiatric symptoms were less. This difference was statistically signiticant between them. Disease-oriented subjective perceptions of parents were severe disease than perceptions about disease of their children. Perceptions of social support of caregiver and perceptions of social support of children show a pozitive and significant correlation. Their BSI scores show a pozitive and significant correlation too. Accordingly, the families and their children perceive similar situations.Consequently there was a result that these parents who caregivers have psychiatric symptoms than their children. In addition, social support needs of parents more than social support needs of their children. Information of similar findings and their comparisons of the literature and also recommendations that will guide subsequent studies are presented in the thesis.