Stigma Experiences in a Major Childhood Burn Injury

Aim: To better understand the impact of a child’s major burn on the family, siblings’ descriptions were elicited to explore the influence on siblings and the family.  The following research question guides this project: How did visible scaring and very visible changes in appearance and sometimes function govern their social acceptance and affect the family.

Methods: A mixed method, qualitative dominant, design was implemented with the qualitative portion using the life story method. A “case” represented a family unit and could be composed of one or multiple family members. Participants from 22 cases (N = 40 participants) were interviewed.  In this analysis only the narratives from those cases describing appearance changes were used (n = 10 participants).

Results: The overall thematic pattern for the siblings experiencing a major burn injury was that of normalization. Areas of normalization were found in play and other activities, in school and work, and in family relations with their siblings and their parents. Parents or non-injured siblings first described how the sibling with the changed appearance was starred at, ridiculed and teased when they went into a new social situation. Siblings with the injury, only when specifically asked, would talk about their problems saying “This always happens when I go somewhere new.”

Conclusions/Implications: The evidence from this research suggests that the child with the changed appearance and their siblings focused on normalizing their lives in a positive way. Often times the parent or non-injured sibling would describe manifestations of stigma and ways they tried to protect the child with the burn injury.