PSYCHOSOCIAL CORRELATES OF SHORT STATURE

Abstract

Prior studies associating short stature in adolescence with difficulties in the areas of self esteem, peer interaction, and acaaemic performance have been inconclusive. We collected questionnaire data on parental perception of their child's health, growth, ease of making friends, and grade placement, and the youth's self esteem, and satisfaction with growth in 42 consecutive male endocrine clinic patients (ages 12-17) for whom short stature was identified as the presenting problem. Self esteem was measured by the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale. All other responses were compared with answers of National Health Examination Survey (NHES) participants comparable for age and SES (Cycle III, 1966-1970). Compared to short (<5th percentile) NHES adolescents, our parents: 1) more often rated their child's general health as poor or fair (14% vs. 0); 2) felt their children make friends less easily (34 vs. 14%); and 3) were much more dissatisfied with the youth's height and weight (50 vs. 30%) and rate of physical growth (90 vs. 30%). Both our adolescents and the short NHES youth were similar in their marked dissatisfaction with their height (92 and 83%). There was no difference on the self esteem measure. These data indicate that pediatricians must be aware of the increased frequency of concern among parents whose adolescents present with short stature and the differences observed between our referral population and the NHES sample demonstrate that data derived from a referral population cannot be extrapolated to snort children in general.