Congenital heart disease and childhood adjustment.

Abstract

This report deals with the findings from a study of twenty-eight children, all of whom had ventricular septal defects and were studied by the same cardiovascular team. One-half of the group had a surgical procedure for correction of the defect. The study investigated three problems in children with ventricular septal defect ( VSD). (1) Do children with surgical intervention for VSD show greater impairment of intellectual functioning than non-operated children? (2) Do children with surgical intervention show greater emotional disturbance than non-operated children? (3) Do children with surgical intervention show greater alteration of body image than do non-operated children? Data were collected using questionnaires, family interviews, subject interviews, medical records, school reports, physicians' reports and Human Figure Drawings, both inside and outside the body. The findings conclude that ( a) operated children do demonstrate significantly more impairment of intellectual functioning; ( b) there was no significant difference in the incidence of emotional disturbances between the two groups but that these twenty-eight children with VSD were more similar emotionally to children in a psychiatric clinic group than in a control group; and ( c) the only indication of altered body image was found in the greater frequency with which bones were drawn by the operated group.