Exploring the psychological effects and emotional reactions of mothers to their children's burn injury : aiming at proposed future therapeutic intervention

Burn injuries are traumatic, destructive and painful, they usually involve long-term medical and psychological consequences. Burns, no matter how small, always leave a certain degree of scarring. When the facial area is involved, it leaves children feeling branded for life with painful psychological effects. When the 'survivor' of the burn injury is a child, the impact of these consequences are even more severe and long term. When a child is burned, the whole family is affected. Most parents suffer the same process of guilt, anxiety and anger, whether the burn is large or small and irrespective of how the burn was caused . The trauma of the accident, the pain and fear of watching a child suffer and the difficulties of long term recovery and reintegrating the child back into the community, induces stress in most families. There has however been little description or measurement of the psychological effects on mothers in the acute post-injury stage. Unfortunately there have only been a few reported psychological interventions to assist mothers in helping them emotionally to support their injured child and family, as well as to assist them over the traumatic period. This study aims at investigating these issues and at initiating proposed future therapeutic interventions.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

1998

Author dc:creator

• Bloomberg, Charissa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Du Preez, Peter

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9663

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9663