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Journal of Pediatric Psychology Advance Access originally published online on September 29, 2006
Journal of Pediatric Psychology 2007 32(4):494-499; doi:10.1093/jpepsy/jsl032
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Brief Report: The Accuracy of Parents for the Thoughts and Feelings of Their Adolescent Suffering from Chronic Fatigue: A Preliminary Study of Empathy

Tine Vervoort, MSc1,2, Geert Crombez, PhD1,2, Ann Buysse, PhD1, Liesbet Goubert, PhD1,2, Tine De Backer, MSc3 and William Ickes, PhD4

1Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium, 2Research Institute for Psychology and Health, The Netherlands, 3Zeepreventorium, De Haan, Belgium, and 4Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Arlington, USA

All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tine Vervoort, Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. E-mail: Tine.Vervoort{at}Ugent.be.


  Abstract

Objective This study examined the actual and estimated empathic accuracy (EA) of the parents of adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Methods The actual EA of both parents (n = 24) was assessed in relation to the thoughts and feelings of their child (n = 14) about CFS and about other life events. Adolescents were also asked to estimate the parents’ EA. Results For the actual EA, both parents were significantly less accurate regarding the adolescent's thoughts and feelings about CFS than about other life events. Fathers were just as empathically accurate as mothers. For the estimated EA, however, results indicated that adolescents perceived their mother to be more empathically accurate than their father. Actual EA and estimated EA about CFS were negatively correlated for fathers, not for mothers. Conclusions Results are discussed in terms of the importance of assessing EA in relation to other dimensions of empathic understanding and distress in the observer.

Key words: adolescents; chronic fatigue syndrome; empathy; parents.

Received November 23, 2005; revision received May 8, 2006; revision received August 18, 2006; accepted September 7, 2006


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