ABSTRACT
Pediatric illness, both chronic and acute, has an impact that extends well beyond the biological symptoms associated with the illness that are experienced by the child. Because children live within a broad social-ecological context that includes the family, school, peer group, neighborhood, and larger community, childhood illness affects all persons with whom they have contact. Once diagnosed with a pediatric illness, children and families become embedded in an additional system: health care. The rules, organizing principles, goals, and beliefs of each of these systems differ. Simply managing the medical aspects of the child’s illness successfully across such diverse systems is a challenge for caregivers, not to mention their concern about the psychosocial aspects of the child’s adaptation to his/her illness in these various social environments. Moreover, the distinctive properties of each social system will influence the meaning and response that is given to the child’s illness, which, in turn, impact the child’s coping and adaptation.
