Citation

Thomasgard M, Metz WP. Clin. Pediatr. 1996; 35(6): 303-308.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, Ohio State University, College of Medicine, Children's Hospital, Columbus, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8782954

Abstract

While a parental perception of child vulnerability to illness/injury is often used interchangeably with parental overprotection, research suggests that they are independent constructs. We hypothesized more frequent pediatric nonwell-child visits for perceived child vulnerability, but not for parental overprotection. The parents of 300 children, ages 2-5 years, enrolled in a health maintenance organization, were sampled. For children without medical conditions, there were no differences in nonwell-child care visits between the high perceived vulnerability and high parental protection groups (Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test, WRST, P = .31). As expected, high parental protection was not significantly associated with increased nonwell-child care visits compared with the low parental protection group (WRST, P = .14). These findings suggest that markers other than health care utilization are required to identify these forms of parent-child relationship disorders.

Language: en