Well-being in mothers of children with congenital heart defects: a 3-year follow-up
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Well-being in mothers of children with congenital heart defects: a 3-year follow-up Maria T. Grønning Dale • Øivind Solberg Henrik Holmstrøm • Markus A. Landolt • Leif T. Eskedal • Margarete E. Vollrath
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Accepted: 20 November 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
Abstract Purpose This prospective case–cohort study compared subjective well-being (SWB) among mothers whose children had various degrees of congenital heart defects (CHD) with mothers of children without CHD (controls). Methods Nationwide CHD registry data were linked to data collected from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study at gestational week 30, 6 months, and 36 months postpartum. A total of 175 mothers of children with mild, moderate, and severe CHD were identified in a M. T. Grønning Dale (&) Ø. Solberg M. E. Vollrath Department of Psychosomatics and Health Behavior, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Post Box 4404, Nydalen, 0403 Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] Ø. Solberg e-mail: [email protected] M. E. Vollrath e-mail: [email protected] M. T. Grønning Dale Ø. Solberg M. E. Vollrath Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway H. Holmstrøm Department of Pediatrics, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] M. A. Landolt Department of Psychosomatics and Psychiatry, Children’ Research Center, University Children’s Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] L. T. Eskedal Department of Pediatrics, Sørlandet Hospital HF, Kristiansand, Norway e-mail: [email protected]
cohort of 44,144 mothers. The SWB index was operationalized by means of three subscales: a cognitive aspect, positive affect, and negative affect. Results Mothers of children with severe CHD reported significantly lower SWB than the controls at 6 months postpartum (p = .003), with further decrease in SWB at 36 months postpartum (p = .001). SWB levels in the mild and moderate CHD group did not deviate significantly from controls. Conclusions The findings suggest a pattern in which all stressors concerning the severely ill child lead to significant deterioration of maternal well-being. Having a child with mild or moderate CHD, which is a less severe and shorterterm stressor, did not reduce mothers’ well-being. Keywords Congenital heart defects Longitudinal research Distress Motherhood Coping Abbreviations CHD Congenital heart defect SWB Subjective well-being
Introduction Only a few decades ago, it was unimaginable that the majority of children with a congenital heart defect (CHD) could survive to adulthood. Advances in diagnosis and better technological and medical management of CHD have contributed to a remarkable increase in survival rates, and presently about 85 % of the children with CHD reach adulthood [1–4]. Increased survival rates make CHD the second most prevalent chronic illness in childhood [3, 5],
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occurring in 8 per 1,000 live births. Therefore, more parents than ever before have the re
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