Stress in Parents of a Child with Hemifacial Microsomia: The Role of Child Characteristics and Parental Coping Strategies.

Objective:  Examine stress levels of parents of children with hemifacial microsomia (HFM) and the relationship of parental stress to child characteristics and cognitive coping strategies. Design:  Prospective cross-sectional study. Participants and Setting:  Parents with a child (age 3–19 years) with HFM (N = 31) were recruited through the Department of Orthodontics and the Craniofacial Center, Sophia-Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Intervention and Outcome Measures:  The adapted and shortened Dutch version of the parental stress index (NOSI-K) was used to measure parental stress, and the cognitive emotion-regulation questionnaire was used to measure cognitive coping strategies. Pearson correlations and a multiple regression analysis were performed. Results:  The hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed associations between increased parental stress and learning difficulties and use of acceptance as a coping strategy. This suggests that problems other than the characteristic vi...