Alergia alimentar em crianças: implicações na vida familiar e no relacionamento fraterno

• Autor(a) principal: Gomes, Érika Campos
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_SP
• Texto Completo: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/20012
• topic: Alergia a alimentos; Crianças doentes - Relações com a família; Food allergy; Sick children - Family relationships; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA

Food allergies have increased considerably and it affects approximately 8% of children. To this day, there are no available cures and the only way of coping with the allergies is to avoid contact with the allergen and emergency treatment of symptoms in case of accidental exposure. The constant dread of anaphylaxis incidents and the vigilance needed to avoid the exposure to the allergen puts significant pressure on the family as a whole, affecting daily activities and consequently quality of life. The objective of this qualitative research is to investigate the main effects of allergy management, its effects on fraternal relationships and intervention techniques to conflict situations arising from the allergy in sibling relations. In this research, we studied mothers found in an online allergy support group hosted on Facebook who had a son/daughter diagnosed with a food allergy age 12 and below and with siblings ages 15 and below who may or may not have a food allergy. The participants answered a questionnaire to better define the family, to gather further information on the allergies and took part in an online discussion board. We identified as the most prominent effects of food allergy changes in daily routine, internal conflicts, conflicts within the nuclear family, conflicts within the extended family and the overall experiences regarding living in with risk. We observed support, complicity and feelings of jealousy and anger in sibling relations as consequences of the food allergy. Conflict mediation strategies used by mothers to deal with conflict in sibling relations involve privation and negotiation. Understanding the complexities and individuality of the particular effects of food allergies in family life, especially in sibling relations is important in order to develop coping techniques which take into account the everlasting care regarding the allergy and the needs of all family members, especially each sibling