The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Children's cognitive representations of epilepsy

Children's cognitive representations of epilepsy
Children's cognitive representations of epilepsy

Epilepsy is a common paediatric neurological disorder.  It has been linked with poor psychosocial outcome, though many children with epilepsy show remarkable resilience.  Improved methodologies have outlined the contributions of many factors to variance in psychosocial outcome, but inadequate theoretical frameworks mean these findings are difficult to interpret.

Researchers are increasingly considering cognitive-perceptual factors in relation to adjustment and it is widely agreed that both children and adults organise their illness cognitions along five dimensions - cause, identity/label, cure/control, timeline and consequences.

Based on Leventhal’s Self-Regulatory Model, the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R) has helped elucidate the role of adult illness cognitions in adjustment to epilepsy.  This thesis describes a study that evaluated the utility of an IPQ-R modified for children (chIPQ-R) with a paediatric epilepsy sample.  Fifty children completed the chIPQ-R in a cross-sectional postal questionnaire design.

The chIPQ-R showed good internal consistency.  Intra-subscale correlations agreed with predictions, indicating that children organise their illness representations in a similar way to adults.  Relationships between chIPQ-R subscales and outcome measures were in hypothesised directions.  Hierarchical multiple regressions found that chIPQ-R subscales added significant amounts of explanatory power to models of behavioural disturbance and psychosocial impact after demographic and epilepsy-related variables had been controlled for.  Interpretation of these findings was cautious, because the sample was drawn from a clinic rather than the community, but it was concluded that the chIPQ-R is acceptable to children as young as seven, and is a reliable and meaningful tool for the exploration of adjustment to paediatric epilepsy.

University of Southampton
Cormack, Karl Frederick Magnus
c23987ef-bbba-40c5-83a4-996264b1549b
Cormack, Karl Frederick Magnus
c23987ef-bbba-40c5-83a4-996264b1549b

Cormack, Karl Frederick Magnus (2003) Children's cognitive representations of epilepsy. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

Epilepsy is a common paediatric neurological disorder.  It has been linked with poor psychosocial outcome, though many children with epilepsy show remarkable resilience.  Improved methodologies have outlined the contributions of many factors to variance in psychosocial outcome, but inadequate theoretical frameworks mean these findings are difficult to interpret.

Researchers are increasingly considering cognitive-perceptual factors in relation to adjustment and it is widely agreed that both children and adults organise their illness cognitions along five dimensions - cause, identity/label, cure/control, timeline and consequences.

Based on Leventhal’s Self-Regulatory Model, the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R) has helped elucidate the role of adult illness cognitions in adjustment to epilepsy.  This thesis describes a study that evaluated the utility of an IPQ-R modified for children (chIPQ-R) with a paediatric epilepsy sample.  Fifty children completed the chIPQ-R in a cross-sectional postal questionnaire design.

The chIPQ-R showed good internal consistency.  Intra-subscale correlations agreed with predictions, indicating that children organise their illness representations in a similar way to adults.  Relationships between chIPQ-R subscales and outcome measures were in hypothesised directions.  Hierarchical multiple regressions found that chIPQ-R subscales added significant amounts of explanatory power to models of behavioural disturbance and psychosocial impact after demographic and epilepsy-related variables had been controlled for.  Interpretation of these findings was cautious, because the sample was drawn from a clinic rather than the community, but it was concluded that the chIPQ-R is acceptable to children as young as seven, and is a reliable and meaningful tool for the exploration of adjustment to paediatric epilepsy.

Text
917505.pdf - Version of Record
Available under License University of Southampton Thesis Licence.
Download (4MB)

More information

Published date: 2003

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 467106
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/467106
PURE UUID: 67cc983b-098c-4b3c-b0d0-44cb27002166

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 05 Jul 2022 08:12
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 20:59

Export record

Contributors

Author: Karl Frederick Magnus Cormack

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×