The purposes of this study were to identify the characteristic of mother's parenting attitudes and the illness managements of school aged children with spina bifida, and to identify the relationship between the parenting attitude and the illness management. The subjects were 53 mothers of school aged children with spina bifida. They participated in our investigation and answered our questionnaire. As a result, the following became clear. 1) The subcategory scores of mother's parenting attitudes "acceptance and child central relation" and "controlled relation" tended to have decreased with school age. 2) In terms of subcategory "avoiding responsibility relation", the scores of mothers with several children were higher as compared with the mothers without several children. 3) In the low grade elementary school, Forty-five% mothers had entrusted the intermittent catheterization to their children. However, in the cleansing enema/enema, and a skin care, there were few mothers who had entrusted them to their children even if they were of junior high school student. 4) In terms of subcategory "avoiding responsibility relation" of mothers of the low grade elementary school, the mothers whose scores were high had the significantly high rate answers that family members changed soiled underwear.

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Parents have a great influence on their children's participation in a decision making process when a high risk treatment plan will be selected, however, there have been few reports focusing on parental ideas. Fifteen children aged between 1 and 15 years had received hematopoiesis stem cell transplantation within the past 2 years, while their parents became the subjects of this study. Semi-structural interviews with the parents were performed and analyzed through a qualitative, inductive research which described the parents' thoughts about stem cell transplantation as high risk treatment. The results show that the parents considered two aspects; the elements on the children's side were "participating ability" and "predicted reaction on the process", and those on the parents' side were "appreciation of the treatment method", "expected responsiveness" and "parental responsibility". Respecting the parents' intentions, it is important to understand these factors empathically, and support may be needed to enhance their ability to confront such difficulties.

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The purposes of this study were to identify the needs for hospital volunteerism to hospitalized children and their families and to examine the role of nurses in volunteer activities. Subjects were 80 parents of hospitalized children and 126 nurses in the three hospitals in the Tohoku district who were informed of the purpose of the research and agree to complete an original questionnaire concerning hospital volunteerism. The responding hospitals included two pediatric wards where hospital volunteers played with the children and held seasonal events, one pediatric ward without volunteers, and various surgical wards without volunteers. Data were analyzed statistically, and partially descriptive results were categorized. Results were as follows: 1) Over 70% of parents and nurses characterized the activities necessary for hospitalized children as holding seasonal events, providing child-care, playing and talking with children, and decorating the wards. Unlike nursing staff, parents more frequently wanted these activities to occur before noon or before visiting hours. 2) Parents wanted volunteers to consider the protection of privacy of the children and their families. 3) The desire expressed by parents with children in the pediatric ward without volunteers for a variety of volunteer activities was correlated to the child's situation and parents' burden of care for the child; having a small number of family members, having parents that stayed a long time with the hospitalized child, duration of hospitalization, and limitations to the child's mobility. The results indicated that nurses must recognize the responsibilities that are shared by nurses and volunteers. Important roles for nurses in hospital volunteerism include preparing volunteers to protect the privacy of patients and their families, and exchanging opinion under continuous and flexible collaboration with hospital volunteers to provide appropriate volunteer activities to hospitalized children and their families.

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The purpose of this paper is to make clear dynamic process of changing mothers' roles and their family situations at the initial stage of hospitalization of the cancer children as it is the initial stage that most drastic changes take place for the mothers and their families. The data was obtained from interviewing 12 mothers who were attending the hospitalized children. The data was qualitatively analyzed in the modified grounded theory approach. Three categories were analytically generated. The first is the acquiring process of new roles as the attending mothers with hospitalized cancer children. The second is the coordinating process of unperformed roles at home due to the attending the children, in which the mothers try to find some other persons on their behalf. The third category is the salvaging process of family ties among the family members who were scattered in time and space due to the hospitalization of their children.

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A parent who suffered from abuse as a child is a risk factor in child abuse. This study identifies how the attachment nature (IWM)that has during pregnancy characters a woman's attitude about parenthood in each of the different stages of pregnancy. Questionnaires were sent to 1,448 pregnant women by post and 728 replies were collected, with an effective reaponse of 726. It was found that, in the early term, a slight difference in attitude on parenthood existed because of the different IWM tendencies. As pregnancy advanced,women with strong sense of security demonstrated a positive attitude on infants and child-raising, whereas anxious and avoidant women were negative about them, this tendency being even more conspicuous with avoidant women. Amongst feelings harbored over parenthood, a strong relation was seen between emotional and behavioral factors and IWM tendency, but the correlation to the recognition factor was weak in all pregnancy terms. To prevent child abuse, matters need to be addressed during early prgnancy and from the perspective of recognition.

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