Publications by authors named "R Ellens"
Maternal health is a critical component of optimal child health and development. Consequently, the American Academy of Pediatrics added postpartum depression (PPD) screening to their psychosocial screening guidelines in 2017. The Healthy Mothers, Healthy Children Project (HMHCP) was an interprofessional initiative aimed at preparing for, then implementing and maintaining pediatrician-completed PPD screening at 1-month well visits in a pediatric primary care clinic.
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- Parents of children with disorders of sex development (DSD) experience significant psychological distress, with mothers showing consistently higher rates of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) than fathers.
- The study involved 52 mothers and 41 fathers of infants recently diagnosed with DSD, measuring PTSS and illness uncertainty, a known factor linked to distress.
- Results indicate that while mothers reported greater PTSS (21.2% clinical levels) compared to fathers (7.3%), factors like parent sex and illness uncertainty play key roles in PTSS, suggesting that interventions focused on reducing illness uncertainty could help these parents.
Background/aims: Parents of children born with disorders of sex development (DSD) often experience anxiety, but risk factors, including parental perception of the severity of their child's DSD, have not been examined. We hypothesized that severity of illness (SOI) ratings would relate to parental anxiety, and would be higher for parents of children with a potentially life-threatening DSD (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Prior studies of outcomes following genitoplasty have reported high rates of surgical complications among children with atypical genitalia. Few studies have prospectively assessed outcomes after contemporary surgical approaches.
Objective: The current study reported the occurrence of early postoperative complications and of cosmetic outcomes (as rated by surgeons and parents) at 12 months following contemporary genitoplasty procedures in children born with atypical genitalia.
Purpose: We examined the psychological adjustment of parents of children born with moderate to severe genital atypia 12 months after their child underwent genitoplasty.
Materials And Methods: Parents were recruited longitudinally from a multicenter collaboration of 10 pediatric hospitals with specialty care for children with disorders/differences of sex development and/or congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Parents completed measures of depressive and anxious symptoms, illness uncertainty, quality of life, posttraumatic stress and decisional regret.