Situational analysis of parenting problems for caregivers of children withsickle cell syndromes

A situational analysis of problematic situations was conducted for 37 careg ivers of children with sickle cell disease (SCD) who ranged in age from 5 t o 13 years. Participants responded to a semistructured interview related to caring for a child with SCD. The interview included the domains of medicat ion adherence, nutrition, minimizing and coping with pain episodes, social problems, academic difficulties, and children's expression of negative feel ings related to having SCD. Caregivers described a total of 356 problems. A lmost all caregivers reported experiencing problems with their children's n utrition (n = 35), minimizing pain episodes (n = 34), and their children ex pressing feelings about having SCD (n = 33). Moderately challenging and emo tionally upsetting problems were reported for coping with pain episodes. Th e total number of problems was significantly higher for boys than for girls . Nutrition issues were more frequently reported for younger children. Find ings have salient clinical implications for the care of children with SCD.