Resumen:
Introduction: It is very important to attend to the emotional experience of disabled persons' siblings. Instead of ignoring, minimizing or exaggerating their psychosocial needs, this article promotes thoughtful consideration of the wide range of emotional aspects--both positive and negative--that arise from having a disabled brother or sister. This consideration will become quite helpful when later addressing these issues with brothers and sisters. With this in mind, the present article delves further into what this emotional experience is like. Method: We have selected and reviewed a broad range of literature from the last 9 years that deals with the issue of siblings and disability. In order to adopt a global perspective and set things in order, we take a deeper look at each type of emotion found, whether positive or negative. All of the emotions addressed in this research are used as categories for analyzing data from interviews (AQUAD six, 2008) with 22 sisters and 11 brothers of people with disabilities between the ages of 8 and 35 years ([x-bar] = 18.7 years and s = 7.7). Results: The emotions most often mentioned by brothers and sisters were worry and unease. The causes of these emotions are: the disabled sibling's future, differential treatment in the home in favor of the disabled sibling, and conflicts due to discrimination and insults toward the sibling at school and in social contexts. Discussion and Conclusions: It is necessary to deal with the negative emotions that arise in these types of sibling relationships. Support groups and workshops with siblings have proven to be useful for this purpose. Toward this end, we review various inputs on how to intervene and address these issues with brothers and sisters. (Contains 4 tables and 2 footnotes.)
