Influence of single parenthood on cardiopulmonary function in pediatric patients with sickle cell anemia

Psychosocial stress is increasingly acknowledged for families having children with chronic illness. 1 Pediatric chronic illness impacts family structure, parental functioning, and health outcomes of the child. 2 Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a chronic disease that can progress to a spectrum of complications, including vaso-occlusive pain crisis and cardiopulmonary dysfunction. The disease begins to manifest in early childhood, during which life-threatening conditions can develop rapidly. Chronic disease management, frequent infections, and unpredictable pain episodes cause anxiety and depression in children with SCD. Families, especially mothers, are a primary resource for stress management and mental health needs. The demands of caring for a chronically ill child and the feeling of powerlessness over the child's illness often associate with emotional stress in parents and impact family conflicts. ingle parenthood, often single motherhood, is more common among families having children with SCD (60%) than the general African-American population (46%). 8 Parental distress related to SCD is considerably more difficult to manage for single parents. The parent-child relationship, in turn, significantly affects a child's perception of stress in life. Recent studies have begun to investigate the impact of single parenthood on SCD outcomes.