Situation and psychosocial well-being of older sisters to children with disabilities or chronic illnesses—the forgotten children?

It is estimated that about 18% of all children aged between 5 and 17 years suffer from some kind of disability or chronic illness (Pastor, Reuben, & Loeb, 2009). Most of these children live at home with their parents and siblings, which put high demands not only on the parents but also on the siblings (Abrams, 2009) who have been described as the ‘‘forgotten children’’ (Madan-Swain, Sexson Brown, & Ragab, 1993) and a ‘‘population at risk’’ (Hannah & Midlarsky, 1985). The number of research studies concerning these siblings has increased over the past decades even if most of the studies concern children with cognitive disabilities (Pit-ten Cate & Loots, 2000). It is not evident that one can generalize these results to children with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses since the demands of the different types of conditions put on the adjustment ability to their families are somewhat different (Sloper & Turner, 1993). Furthermore, most of this research studies the sibling’s situation and wellbeing from the mother’s perspective (Sari, Baser, & Turan, 2006; Stoneman, 2005) and siblings as a group and, thus, are not gender- or age-specific studies. (Published: 2 July 2013) Citation: Int J Qualitative Stud Health Well-being 2013, 8 : 21755 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v8i0.21755