Parents ’ Social Adjustment in Families of Children with Spina Bifida: A Theory-driven Review

Objective Five theoretical hypotheses about the impact of spina bifida (SB) on parents ’ social adjustment in the parent–child, the marital and the family-level relationship were tested. Methods PsycInfo, Medline and reference lists were searched. This yielded 27 eligible reports. Effect sizes (Hedges ’ d) were computed to estimate the impact of SB. Results Overall, the effects of SB were small to negligible on the affective dimensions of parents ’ relationships. The few effects that were found tended to be positive. The most important negative effects of SB were found in the parent–child relationship (parenting stress and overprotection). Conclusions Support was found for the resilience–disruption hypothesis, the role-division hypothesis and the miscarried-helping hypothesis, but not for the marital-disruption hypothesis or the marginality hypothesis. Key words family; parents; psychosocial adjustment; review; spina bifida. Spina bifida (SB), which covers a wide array of spinal cord malformations, is the second most common congenital disorder world wide (Mersereau et al., 2004). Depending on the type of malformation (closed vs. open), its location on the spine (sacral, lumbar, or thoracic), an