Striking a Balance: Sibling Emotionality and the Negotiation of Power in an Eighteenth-Century Noble Family of the Austrian Netherlands

This article examines the emotional dynamics between six siblings of the Merode family in the eighteenth century and the ways in which they used emotional expression as a mechanism to communicate and negotiate existing forms of power within their sibling group. Using the extensive personal correspondence between the siblings, the article explores how the hierarchical nature of their relationship related to expectations of unity, arguing that the siblings had to find a balance between keeping the peace and challenging inequality related to gender, age, and marital status. Sibling emotionality played an important role in negotiating these unequal power dynamics.

“We Thought We Were Alone”: The Subjective Experience of the Siblings of Anorexic Adolescent Patients

Objective: The siblings of patients suffering from Anorexia Nervosa (AN) are potentially affected by a disturbed emotional experience that often remains undetected. In order to bring them a psychological support, the Maison de Solenn proposed a support group program for these siblings. The current research explores their mental representations of AN and their emotional experience in the support group named “sibling group.”Method: This exploratory study is based on a phenomenological and inductive qualitative method. Four girls and three boys aged between 6 and 19 participating in the “sibling group” were included in a one-time focus group session using a semi-structured interview guide. The thematic data analysis was performed by applying the methods of interpretative phenomenological analysis.Results: Themes that emerged from the interview fall into four categories: AN explained by siblings; the individual emotional experience of siblings; the family experience of siblings and the experience inside the “sibling group.”Discussion: According to our participants, the “sibling group” thus functions as a good compromise between keeping an active role in the anorexic patient's care and taking a step back to avoid being eaten up by the illness. Sibling-group participants retrieved a sense of belonging, which is normally one of the functions of being a sibling. It is important to note that the “sibling group” is part of the comprehensive (or global) family-based approach included in an institutional multidisciplinary integrative care framework.

The Saami cooperative herding group: the siida system from past to present

The Saami siida has been described as an organisational institution tailored to meet the dynamic demands of reindeer herding. Historically, it has been characterised as a relatively small group based on kinship. It was formed around a core sibling group and distinguished by a norm of equality where herding partners were equals regardless of social status. Moreover, it was informally led by a wealthy and skilful person whose authority was primarily related to herding. One of the critical aspects of the siida was that it was flexible: composition and size changed according to the season, and members were free to join and leave the groups as they saw fit. Comparing the current status of the siida system in the Northern and Southern parts of Norway results from this study show that the main difference between the historical representation of the siida system and today concerns a loss of siida flexibility. Only two herders reported to have changed summer- and winter siida since 2000. Furthermore, while the siida continues to be family-based, leadership is becoming more formal. Nevertheless, while leadership is being formalised, decision-making continues to be influenced by concerns of equality.

Evaluation of the quality-of-life (QOL) and socio-demographic characteristics of patients with leukemia and lymphoma: Comparison with sibling and control group.

e22524 Background: Pediatric cancer patients have increased survival rates with intensive and effective treatment methods which causing some chronic health problems and lower quality of life in long term follow up. In our study, patients in their active treatment period compared to patients who have completed their treatment in recent 5 years and more than 5 years groups, besides compared with their own siblings and healthy control group,evaluated in terms of quality of life ( QOL). Methods: This study has been daone in the Department of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, Ankara University School of Medicine. A total of 191 children were included in the study, including 36 sibling, 76 children with leukemia (n:31) and lymphoma (n:45) besides 79 healthy children. The Turkish translation of the PedsQL questionnaire was used to evaluate the patients' quality of life. IBM SPSS-25 package program was used for statistical analysis. Results: When the sociodemographic characteristics of the patient, sibling and control group were examined; we determined that the patients, siblings and control groups were similar in age, age and gender. However, we found that the education level for the patient group was statisticaly signicantly lower then the siblings and the control group. In addition, physical and mental functionning and friendship capasity scores were lower in patient group than the other two groups. According to timing of the treatment; patients and parents quality of life scores were significantly lower than the patients that finished their treatment in recent 5 years or more than 5 years. QOL scores were higest in survivors and parents group that were in more than 5 years after completed the treatment. The risk of lower QOL in patients under treatment was 7.48 times higher than the children who had ≥5 years of treatment (OR = 7,48; p < 0,05), and 2.64 times higher than those who were treated < 5 years (OR = 2,64; p > 0,05). In this study, there were no independent variables that had an impact on QOL of the sibling group. Conclusions: The QOLof patients diagnosed with leukemia and lymphoma is significantly lower than siblings and healthy group. No statistically significant difference was found between the sibling group and the healthy control group. After the end of active treatment, the QOL of the patients was reflecting important increase by the time .

Vaccination Behavior among Children with Developmental Delay and their siblings: A cross sectional study from Kerala

Background and Aim: Despite multiple scientific evidence to the contrary, parental concerns with respect to association of vaccination and development of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) persist. Mental health professionals work closely with families with developmental disabilities. Greater understanding regarding the vaccination status in siblings of children with developmental disabilities and its associated factors will help them to contribute to public health strategies in combating infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to study the vaccination uptake and its associated factors in sibling of children with developmental disabilities. Materials and Methods: The study design was cross sectional in nature. The families of children with developmental disabilities were recruited into the study from three child developmental centres. The data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. The recruitment of participants into the study was done from December 2017 to February 2018. Results: 189 families with children with developmental disabilities were recruited into the study. In total, these children had 114 typically developing elder siblings and 50 typically developing younger sibling. The proportion of overall complete vaccination among children with developmental disabilities group and the younger sibling group were significantly lower than their older sibling group (P<0.01). The proportion of MMR vaccination among children with developmental disabilities group and the younger sibling group were significantly lower than their older sibling group (P<0.001). Conclusions: Findings from this study suggest that the reduced vaccination uptake is a general trend in families of children with developmental delay. Such a significant fall in the vaccination rate in this group of children will make them vulnerable in case of outbreaks. This emphasise the need to have public health strategies targeted to improve the vaccination rate in families of children with developmental disabilities.

Brain-Wide Functional Dysconnectivity in Schizophrenia: Parsing Diathesis, Resilience, and the Effects of Clinical Expression

Background: The functional dysconnectivity observed from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in schizophrenia is also seen in unaffected siblings indicating its association with the genetic diathesis. We intended to apportion resting-state dysconnectivity into components that represent genetic diathesis, clinical expression or treatment effect, and resilience. Methods: fMRI data were acquired from 28 schizophrenia patients, 28 unaffected siblings, and 60 healthy controls. Based on Dosenbach’s atlas, we extracted time series of 160 regions of interest. After constructing functional network, we investigated between-group differences in strength and diversity of functional connectivity and topological properties of undirected graphs. Results: Using analysis of variance, we found 88 dysconnectivities. Post hoc t tests revealed that 62.5% were associated with genetic diathesis and 21.6% were associated with clinical expression. Topologically, we observed increased degree, clustering coefficient, and global efficiency in the sibling group compared to both patients and controls. Conclusion: A large portion of the resting-state functional dysconnectivity seen in patients represents a genetic diathesis effect. The most prominent network-level disruption is the dysconnectivity among nodes of the default mode and salience networks. Despite their predisposition, unaffected siblings show a pattern of resilience in the emergent connectomic topology. Our findings could potentially help refine imaging genetics approaches currently used in the pursuit of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.