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

The purpose of our study was to determine the ways in which adolescents wit h congenital cardiac disease believed that the condition had affected their life, and how these views were related to their perceived health. Intervie ws were conducted with a series of 37 adolescents, 17 girls and 20 boys, ag ed from 11 to 18, as they attended the clinics of 4 paediatric cardiologist s in a teaching hospital in the United Kingdom. Transcripts of the intervie ws were analysed for recurring themes. A questionnaire was formed consistin g of a set of questions for each theme, and additional items eliciting "per ceived health", and administered to a second series of 74 adolescents, 40 b oys and 34 girls, who were again aged from 11 to is years. Slightly less th an half (46%) perceived their health as either "good" or "very good", and o ne-third (33%) rated it as "average The majority (66%) felt themselves to b e "the same" as, or only very slightly "different" from, their peers. The a ssessment: of the seriousness of their condition by the adolescents, the de gree to which they saw themselves as different from others, and their perce ived health, were not related to the "complexity of the underlying medical condition" as rated by their physician. It was the psychosocial themes, suc h as exclusion from activities or the effect of the condition on relationsh ips, that were most strongly related to the perception of their health by t he adolescents. Improved education of parents, teachers and peers, and atte ndance at classes for cardiac rehabilitation, might help to ameliorate some of these problems.