Browsing by Author "Kinnunen, Susanne"

Introduction: The purpose of this review is to assess how resilience influences the psychological functioning of children with somatic diseases. Previous research on children’s resilience has focused mostly on psychiatric disorders. In contrast, psychological perspective has not been taken well into account in many studies on well- being of children with somatic diseases. Only recently has this perspective received somewhat more attention. Methods: A literature search was conducted using Google Scholars database in the fields of psychology and medicine. Resilience, psychological functioning, child and somatic were the main search terms used. In addition to, the reference lists of selected references were used to find out other relevant references. Results and conclusions: Both children related features, such as optimism, and environment related features, such as support from the parents, influence resilience. Children have only limited capabilities to process information and therefore they need support from the surrounding environment. Furthermore, the parents’ challenges in dealing with the children’s diseases can have impact on children. Therefore, for the recovery of the children, it is important to not only support the children but their families as well. Besides engaging children in the treatment in a manner suitable for their age, can support their psychological functioning. Future research on the role of resilience at different time points - from receiving the diagnosis to the time of recovering - is needed that clinicians and caregivers can support the resilience as part of treatment. Furthermore, research on resilience among different age groups and disease categories would support targeting treatment to children who would benefit the most.