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Factors associated with self-perceived state of health in adolescents with congenital cardiac disease attending paediatric cardiologic clinics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2006

Lynne Kendall
Affiliation:
Paediatric Cardiac Unit, Yorkshire Heart Centre, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, United Kingdom
Robert J. P. Lewin
Affiliation:
British Heart Foundation Rehabilitation Research Unit, University of York, York, United Kingdom
Jonathan M. Parsons
Affiliation:
Paediatric Cardiac Unit, Yorkshire Heart Centre, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, United Kingdom
Gruschen R. Veldtman
Affiliation:
Paediatric Cardiac Unit, Yorkshire Heart Centre, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, United Kingdom
Joanne Quirk
Affiliation:
Paediatric Cardiac Unit, Yorkshire Heart Centre, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, United Kingdom
Geoffrey F. Hardman
Affiliation:
Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York, United Kingdom

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to determine the ways in which adolescents with congenital cardiac disease believed that the condition had affected their life, and how these views were related to their perceived health. Interviews were conducted with a series of 37 adolescents, 17 girls and 20 boys, aged from 11 to 18, as they attended the clinics of 4 paediatric cardiologists in a teaching hospital in the United Kingdom. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed for recurring themes. A questionnaire was formed consisting of a set of questions for each theme, and additional items eliciting “perceived health”, and administered to a second series of 74 adolescents, 40 boys and 34 girls, who were again aged from 11 to 18 years. Slightly less than half (46%) perceived their health as either “good” or “very good”, and one-third (33%) rated it as “average”. The majority (66%) felt themselves to be “the same” as, or only very slightly “different” from, their peers. The assessment of the seriousness of their condition by the adolescents, the degree to which they saw themselves as different from others, and their perceived health, were not related to the “complexity of the underlying medical condition” as rated by their physician. It was the psychosocial themes, such as exclusion from activities or the effect of the condition on relationships, that were most strongly related to the perception of their health by the adolescents. Improved education of parents, teachers and peers, and attendance at classes for cardiac rehabilitation, might help to ameliorate some of these problems.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
2001 Cambridge University Press

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