Perceived vulnerability: a comparison of parents and children

Abstract

This study examined the agreement between parents’ and children’s perceptions of children’s vulnerability to illness. While extreme perceptions of vulnerability, such as vulnerable child syndrome, are described as disorders of the parent-child relationship, children’s health-related cognitions have not been examined as part of this process. The self-perceptions of health of 47 pre-school-aged children and their parents were evaluated through an interview and a survey respectively. Risk factors for vulnerable child syndrome predicted elevated perceptions of vulnerability for parents but not for children. Agreement on the child’s level of vulnerability to illness was high, except that only one-third of the children whose parents classified them as more vulnerable relative to their peers classified themselves in this way. The results suggest that children’s perceptions of their health status should be incorporated into therapeutic work with families in which children are perceived as medically vulnerable.