Relationships among life stress, perceived family environment, and the psychological distress of spina bifida adolescents.

Fifty-three teen-agers with spina bifida participated in a mail survey and completed measures of recent life events, perceived family environment, and psychological distress. Low levels of perceived family conflict and control served as life stress buffers in the prediction of distress, whereas a high level of perceived independence served as a life stress exacerbator. These interaction effects differ from those obtained for a normal sample of adolescents in the lone previous study (Burt, Cohen, & Bjorck, 1988) that reported comparable analyses. The results suggest that the process by which family environments moderate stress adjustment differs for able-bodied vs. spina bifida adolescents.