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A review of the literature strongly suggests that poor family dynamics play a critical role in an adolescent's choice of suicide. This thesis examines the literature and research findings on adolescent suicide and family functioning. It will bring together recent findings to help professionals access the information on adolescent suicide as it relates to the family. The psychosocial and cognitive theories of development are explored to provide a framework for understanding adolescents and the reasons for the choices and problem solving they make in their quest for identity. Since social workers are increasingly implicated in the prevention of youth suicide, the thesis applies the argument to prevention from a social work perspective.

The psychosocial functioning of the families of clinic-referred adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was evaluated in two studies. Study 1 examined the psychiatric and psychological difficulties of married adults with ADHD and their spouses, with a focus on the quality of their marital adjustment and family functioning. Study 2 focused on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, the psychological functioning, and the social functioning of children with ADHD parents. / Results revealed that married adults with ADHD had higher rates of comorbid psychiatric disorders and more psychological distress than non-ADHD control adults. The spouses of adults with ADHD did not differ in rates of psychiatric disorders from the control spouses, however, they reported significantly higher levels of current psychological distress. Greater marital and family dysfunction were reported by adults with ADHD than control adults. The spouses of ADHD adults, however, did not report greater marital and family dysfunction than the spouses of controls. / The children of ADHD adults were found to be at high risk for ADHD. Forty-three percent of the children met DSM-IV criteria for the disorder. The children with ADHD were found to have higher rates of comorbid disorders, more psychological difficulties, and significantly poorer social functioning than the control children. The non-ADHD children of ADHD adults were not found to differ from control children on these measures. Having a parent without a psychiatric disorder in the home was found to have a protective effect on behavior problems in the non-ADHD children. / Together, these studies suggest that evaluating the functioning of family members and the health of the family relationships are important when assessing clinic-referred adults with ADHD. These results suggest that involving family members in the therapeutic process may be beneficial.

As the rate of divorce is increasing, the number of children who have to cope with these stressful situations is also growing. Since these divorces come with many problems for the children involved, they are getting more and more attention. The professionnals who are required by the court to give their opinion on who should get the custody or what will be the right of access, have pointed out a particular phenomenon: parental alienation syndrome. The first person who described this syndrome was Gardner (1989, 1992a). He blamed the court system for the syndrome, where, in its adversarial perspective, one side tries to win over the other using alienation as one of their strategies. In our opinion, this view does not account for all the aspects of the parental alienation syndrome and for the emotional turmoil created by the divorce. When, after a divorce, one is trapped in one's emotions, the result is an impass, where parental alienation is but one aspect of this impass. This paper shows how an impass, grows and which form the parental alienation syndrome takes. Cases from our practice will illustrate some situations of parental alienation resulting from a psychological impass and where the children are the victims.

Children with an intellectual disability may significantly affect families in ways that have implications for other sibling's adjustment. In this thesis, 40 siblings of intellectually disabled children are compared to 40 siblings of healthy children. The goal is to determine (i) if a child with an intellectual disability affects the other siblings in the family, and (ii) if they are functions of siblings' age, grade, gender, ordinal position, age gap with the disabled child, sibling number, disabled child's severity of impairment, parental educational background, etc. / The findings did not confirm that siblings of children with an intellectual disability have poorer adjustment than that of healthy children. However, the older sisters and older siblings of children with intellectual disability were found to have poorer adjustment in some of the area. Age gap and father's educational background is positively correlated to the adjustment of siblings of children with an intellectual disability. Then and other findings are discussed in the thesis.

This thesis is concerned with families and chronic illness in childhood. The specific focus of the study is the nursing contribution to support of the family. A longitudinal study of the experience of four families caring for a child with cystic fibrosis was carried out using the ethnographic approach. Analysis of the four case studies provides insight to the effect of cystic fibrosis on each family member and on family interaction. The psychosocial transition by which the families moved from seeing themselves as healthy families to accepting the reality of a long-term health problem is described. The complexity of the effect of the genetic aspects and the grim prognosis is explored. The importance of finding meaning in suffering, the experiences of crisis and the chronic burden of care during the long-term adaptive stage of the illness are described. The support networks used by the families, and the nurse's contribution to that support are analysed. The research arose from practice and raises issues for nursing - issues relating to the level of interpersonal skill and the emotional investment required. The theoretical underpinning of nursing interaction is elaborated and the utility of systems theory in the understanding of the nursing situation is discussed. The importance of synchrony in the parents' adaptation to the child's illness is an emergent theme. The implications of the findings for nursing practice, management and research are discussed. The case for the development of a concept of family nursing to meet contemporary health care needs is argued.

The study problem was that sane individuals found institutionalizing a family member stressful, and family members required assistance in coping. The purposes of the study were to examine threat appraisal, degree of threat, and coping responses in a sample of family members of newly institutionalized elderly. The study was a descriptive correlational investigation which utilized Lazarus' theory of stress and coping as the theoretical framework.There were 21 questionnaires received from a convenience sample obtained through four nursing hens in the vicinity of a small city in Indiana. Five major categories of threat were identified. A high degree of threat was associated with each category. Both problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping were utilized.Pearson product-mcinent correlation was used to determine that no significant relationship existed between coping responses utilized and degree of threat. ANOVA was used to reveal that there were no significant differences between coping responses utilized and demographic variables. Each scale was determined to be reliable by usage of Cronbach's alpha. / School of Nursing

Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Psychological Science