The role of parents taking care of a child with chronic disease

Introduction: Parents play a key role in realizing doctors recom-mendations about child chronic disease. Diabetes type 1 as a chronic disease requires from parents (mainly mothers) a lot of engagement in taking care of a child. A very important feature in this place is a child’s age and parents age and their intellectual possibilities and the length of a disease.
Aim: The aim of this work was to know parents’ problems in taking care of a child with chronic disease (diabetes type 1).
Material and method: The research group consisted of 210 parents (whose children had diabetes type 1) from Wielkopolska region. Diagnosis was used as the method. As a technique we used personal questionnaire.
Results: The research group consisted of parents aged 40 ±6,2 for mothers and 42 ±6 for fathers taking care of their children at a school age 8-18 years old who have diabetes type 1, approximately for 4,9 ±3,3 years. Most of the respondents claimed that they were well prepared to take care of a child. People who filled in a questionnaire claimed that all the information about diabetes was given to them by a specialist and he was the only one to give them all the information about diabetes they wanted. The people didn’t expect the information from the general practitioner or the nurse. The cost of treatment was the main problem for parents. More than half of the parents were satisfied thot their children could independently check the sugar level in their blood and take the insulin. Some of these parents (mainly mothers) had to contact the psychologist because of a child’s chronic disease.
Conclusions: Medical treatment workers (doctors, nurses) and their knowledge about diabetes type 1 can help parents in taking care about ill child. Easy access to psychologists can give (mainly mothers) better opportunities in solving problems with a child with chronic disease.