The family experience of living with the child's chronic illness

Abstract

This research has focused on the family meaning of having a child with chronic illness. The Grounded Theory and the Symbolic Interactionism were employed as research method and theoretical approach respectively. The interviews involved families with children diagnosed as having a chronic disease, cystic fibrosis and diabetes, aiming to study the way the family copes with this situation, and the meaning giving by the family to this experience. Data were analyzed until the phase of categorizing and the phenomenon disclosed was: "Being hard not to have control".