Behavior problems common in kids with ill siblings

Last Updated: 2002-10-09 14:00:06 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Hannah Cleaver

BERLIN (Reuters Health) - Brothers and sisters of children with a chronic illness are significantly more likely to have behavioral problems than children without health problems in the family, according to new study findings.

The results come from the largest-ever study into children suffering from the rare condition spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a progressive muscle wasting disease that confines patients to wheelchairs and in its later stages affects basic muscular functions such as breathing.

Dr. Christine Laufsweiler-Plass, who conducted the study at Cologne University Hospital, looked at children between 6 and 11 years of age, including 42 SMA patients, 17 siblings of SMA sufferers, and a "control" group of 28 other children with no chronic illness in the family.

Laufsweiler-Plass used a checklist, in which parents or other individuals rate a child's problem behaviors.

"There was a statistical difference between the number of siblings who scored as unusual on the...test and the number of those from the control group," she told Reuters Health.

The tests showed that 35.3% of the SMA siblings were disturbed in terms of behavior, compared with 14.3% of the control children.

The study did not determine the factors that may have contributed to the behavioral problems, she said. However, more social support for the parents appeared to help.

"It seemed that the parents coped better, and thus their healthy child did better, when they had sufficient social support, be that family or friends," she said.

"The caring parent usually has to get up three times a night to turn and check their sick child. Their relationship to the healthy child suffers, of course it does. But rather than money, it seems like a social support network is perhaps the most important factor in helping them cope."

Laufsweiler-Plass said her research had been accepted by the journal Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology and should be published next year.

The report of the entire study conducted by the university hospitals of Bonn and Cologne, which covered 96 children and examined a range of other factors such as IQ, coping mechanisms and incidence of incontinence, should be published next year.

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