Experienced Dyadic Emotion Regulation And Coping Of Parents With A Seriously Ill Child

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe parents' experiences of jointly regulating their emotions when their child gets life-threateningly sick. The aim of this study was also to find out the parents' experiences of the significance of dyadic emotion regulation for their personal coping and to discover the challenges in their dyadic emotion regulation. A purposive sample of 32 parents of seriously ill children was recruited from the Department of Pediatrics in Kuopio University Hospital and interviewed within 3 weeks of their child's diagnosis. Videotaped interviews were analyzed by interpretative phenomenological analysis. The main themes of analysis were the recognition and disclosure of the needs of dyadic emotion regulation, load sharing and dyadic regulation of emotions. the importance of dyadic emotion regulation in terms of coping, and the challenges of dyadic emotion regulation. The subthemes of load sharing and dyadic regulation of emotions were recognizing another's emotions; direct expression versus avoiding emotions; nonverbal interaction, presence, and intimacy; and verbal interaction. The results help health-care personnel to understand the connection between a child's illness and the parents' couple relationship, to recognize parents' needs for emotional support, and to develop appropriate couple interventions for parents.