Chronic Illness and Family Management Styles

[Page 191]Chronic illness during childhood influences both the child and the family. How the family views the illness, deals with the challenges it presents, and incorporates illness management into their daily lives can either promote healthy functioning or create additional stress and burden on the family unit. The family management styles (FMS) framework identifies the way a family responds to a childhood chronic illness, concentrating on the active, behavioral responses that define the management of the illness. The five family management styles—thriving, accommodating, enduring, struggling, and floundering—identify different types of family responses to childhood chronic illness. Knowledge of the management style a family uses can help health care providers and others who deal with chronically ill children and their families better guide and intervene to ...