• Rocío Rodríguez-Rey and Jesús Alonso-Tapia.
• Department of Psychology, Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences, School of Biomedical Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, C/Tajo S/N. Urb El Bosque, Villaviciosa de Odon, 28670, Madrid, Spain. rocio.rodriguez.rey@gmail.com.
• J Clin Psychol Med Settings. 2019 Sep 1; 26 (3): 372-381.

AbstractResearch on parental psychological effects related to a child's critical illness has focused on studying negative outcomes, while the possibility of posttraumatic growth (PTG), defined as the perception of positive changes after a traumatic event, has been overlooked. This study explores the degree of parental PTG after a child's hospitalization in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and the role of resilience, emotions, perceived severity of the child's condition and stress in predicting PTG. In the first 48 h after their child's discharge from a PICU, N = 196 parents were assessed for resilience, emotions, perceived stress, and the degree to which they perceived their child's condition as severe. 6 months later N = 143 parents were assessed PTG. 6 months post discharge, 37.1% of parents reported PTG at least to a medium degree. Path analyses with latent variables showed that the psychological variables assessed at discharge predicted between 20 and 21% of the total variance in PTG. Resilience affected PTG indirectly, through the bias of positive emotions. PTG is a frequent phenomenon. Psychological interventions aimed at encouraging parental PTG after a child's critical admission should focus on boosting resilience and positive emotions.

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