Abstract:

Our thesis aims to find out what attitude the family took after the disease´s outbreak; to find out, whether families´ values changed after their child became ill; to find out if the family had anybody nearby who could help them; whether it has used any of the social and health social services. We were also interested to see what changes occurred in the functioning of the family; to describe changes of relationships connected with disease management. The paper is divided into two main parts.
The theoretical part summarizes the existing knowledge and theories concerning mainly psychology of the family, disease management, family system and the presence of the sick child in the family.
The research part of the paper is focused on a methodology and a research from the field of the issue. It is a qualitative research using a method of in-depth semi-structured interviews, which have been analysed.

The goal of our thesis is to figure out, what stance has a family adopted towards the illness after the illness broke out, if the values of the family did change after the child got ill, if the family has had anybody around to help, and if it made use of any social-health care. We have further been interested in the changes in the family routines, and in family relations, connected to coping with the illness. The thesis is structured in two major parts.
The theoretical part summarized the existing state of knowledge and theory chiefly regard-ing the family psychology, coping with and illness, family system and presence of an ill child in a family.

The empirical part focuses on the methodology and results of our research on the topic. It is a qualitative survey conducted via in-depth semi-structured interviews, which subsequently have been analysed.

Keywords:

long-term illnesses, child, parent, hospital, help.