2001 Volume 21 Issue 1 Pages 51-60
The purpose of this study was to investigate the interactions among variables in a theoretical framework derived from the Mishel Theory of Illness Uncertainty (1988; 1990), which represents parents' decision making about the setting of living for their children based on the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1) Parents who can notice the changes in the reaction of their own children tend to challenge to the uncertainty in illness, resulting to raise the quality of decision making about the living setting of children. Hypothesis 2) Parents who can not notice such changes in their children's reaction tend to persist in the uncertainty in illness, resulting to lower the quality of decision making about the living setting of children. Hypothesis 3) Parents who are confident in the care of their own children tend to challenge to the uncertainty, resulting to raise the quality of decision making about the living setting of their children. Hypothesis 4) Parents who are little confident in the care of their own children tend to persist in the uncertainty, resulting to lower the quality of decision making about the living setting of children. Hypothesis 5) Parents who are not burdened down with the care of children tend to challenge to the uncertainty, resulting to raise the quality of decision making about the living setting of children. Hypothesis 6) Parents who are burdened down with the care of children tend to persist in the uncertainty resulting to lower the quality of decision making about the living setting.
A total of 101 parents who had decided the living setting for their respirator-dependent children (0-15 years old) wearing a respirator for more than 3 months were used as the subjects. A survey was made using six forms of questionnaire and the statistical analysis was performed by multiple regression analysis and the interactions between two variables except for the influence of other variables were expressed with path coefficient. The present results supported neither of the correlation between the notice of children's changes and the persistence in the uncertainty for Hypothesis 2) nor the correlation between the burden of care and the challenge to the uncertainty for Hypothesis 5). The present study provided useful information to establish a support system for parents by which it would become easy for parents to decide the living setting of children to satisfaction through converting the uncertainty as to the children's illness to a challenge to it by nursing professionals in future.
