Gostautas Antanas, Pakrosnis Rytis, Krikscionaityte Simona, Endziniene Milda, Sergutina Irina, Glamba Vitalijus
Department of Theoretic Psychology, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania.
Medicina (Kaunas). 2006;42(4):321-31.
Psychosocial adjustment of adolescents with health disorders has been studied extensively. However, it is unclear whether different health disorders have specific impact on adjustment, or disorder in general relates to the development of adjustment difficulties as a factor limiting adolescent's physical and social activity. This study was aimed to identify peculiarities of psychosocial adjustment difficulties among hospitalized adolescents with neurological and physical disorders and secondary school students. The sample consisted of 738 adolescents (aged 12-18 years), of which 100 had neurological and 94 - physical disorders, and 544 secondary school students. Psychosocial adjustment difficulties were evaluated using Standardized Interview for the Evaluation of Adolescents' Problems. Results show that emotional-mood difficulties and low self-esteem are more prevalent and severe in the clinical groups comparing with the healthy controls, while the prevalence and the severity of conflicts are higher among students. Comparison of both clinical groups shows that neurological disorders are related to higher prevalence of difficulties in emotional and cognitive functioning and higher severity of suicidal tendencies, while physical disorders relate to higher prevalence of behavior difficulties.
