Parent-Child Dyadic Experiences Living with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) during Emerging Adulthood

Chronic illness and invisible disability are impactful contexts during emerging adulthood and the launching stage of the family life cycle (Beatty, 2011; Capelle, Visser, and Vosman, 2016; Young et al., 2010). The parent-child relationship is important to both developmental and health outcomes in families coping with chronic illness during emerging adulthood (Crandell, Sandelowski, Leeman, Haville, and Knafle, 2018; Fenton, Ferries, Ko, Javalkar, and Hooper, 2015; Waldboth, Patch, Mahrer-Imhaf, and Metcalfe, 2016). While informed clinical competency in counseling families experiencing disablement is a diversity-affirmative ethical imperative among psychotherapists (Mona et al., 2017), little is known in family therapy about how parents and emerging adult children experience launching with chronic illness. This qualitative study explored the parent-child dyadic experience of living with a chronic illness called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) during emerging adulthood. Seven dyads of parents and their emerging adult children with POTS were interviewed. Data analysis of in-depth interviews using Moustakas's (1994) transcendental phenomenology uncovered eight thematic clusters of meaning in the shared lived experience of POTS at the launching stage of the family life cycle. Clinical implications for family therapists were explored using Rolland's family system-illness (FSI) model of medical family therapy. Study limitations and future directions for further research were discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human Development

Department dc:contributor.department

Adult Learning and Human Resource Development

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Farchtchi, Masumeh Auguste

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Shivers, Carolyn

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Muruthi, James R.
• Landers, Ashley L.

• emerging adulthood
• launching with chronic illness
• parent-child relationship and dyadic coping
• medical family therapy
• family systems-illness model
• invisible disability
• postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS)
• family resilience

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:24971

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/98006