Family members' uncertainty about parental chronic illness: the relationship of hemophilia and HIV infection to child functioning

Examined the relationships among parental and child uncertainty about fathers' illnesses and child internalizing problems. Participants included 65 families in which the father had hemophilia, approximately one half of the fathers also were HIV infected. Within each family, respondents included the father, the mother and one child. Outcome variables included both self- and parent-reported child internalizing behaviors. Results indicated that family members' illness uncertainty was intercorrelated, that child uncertainty about the father's illness predicted both anxiety and depressive symptoms in the child, and that mother's uncertainty predicted child-reported anxiety beyond the child's uncertainty.