Chapar G N, Friedman S B, Horwitz J
Department of Pediatrics, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, New York 11030.
J Dev Behav Pediatr. 1988 Dec;9(6):352-8.
Experimental and clinical studies have demonstrated that psychosocial factors may influence various immune responses. Recently, the relationship between psychologically stressful events and immunomodulation in humans has been reported. Few studies, however, have demonstrated clinically significant increases in infectious illness, or delayed recovery from infectious illness among humans as a result of stressful events. This study was undertaken to determine if children who experienced the greatest difficulty adjusting to kindergarten entry, a common event which is differentially stressful, would have the highest frequency of school absence (an index of illness). A randomly selected sample of 49 children entering kindergarten for the first time, and their families (patients of a suburban pediatric practice), were studied over a 6-month period utilizing health diaries, interviews with parents, parent ratings, physicians' records and ratings, and teacher ratings of children's behavior. We were unable to demonstrate a relationship between psychosocial factors and school absence among our sample of children. A possible explanation for this finding may be the relatively nondeviant character of the subjects studied. Another possibility is that kindergarten entry was not experienced as a stressful event for the children, most of whom had attended nursery school.
实验和临床研究表明，心理社会因素可能会影响各种免疫反应。最近，有报道称心理压力事件与人类免疫调节之间存在关联。然而，很少有研究表明压力事件会导致人类临床上显著增加传染病发病率，或导致传染病恢复延迟。本研究旨在确定那些在适应幼儿园入学（这是一个压力程度因人而异的常见事件）方面遇到最大困难的儿童，是否旷课频率最高（旷课是疾病的一个指标）。我们对49名首次进入幼儿园的儿童及其家庭（郊区一家儿科诊所的患者）进行了随机抽样，在6个月的时间里，利用健康日记、与家长的访谈、家长评分、医生记录和评分以及教师对儿童行为的评分对他们进行了研究。在我们的儿童样本中，我们未能证明心理社会因素与旷课之间存在关联。这一发现的一个可能解释可能是所研究对象的性格相对没有偏差。另一种可能性是，对大多数上过托儿所的孩子来说，进入幼儿园并没有被视为一个压力事件。
