A Study to Assess the Psychological Adjustment in Children with Chronic Medical Conditions in Selected Hospitals at Mangalore

The study aimed to determine the psychological adjustment in children with chronic medical conditions; to find out the correlation between self-perception and depression scores; and self-perception and anxiety scores among children with chronic medical conditions; and to find the association of psychological adjustment with the selected demographic variables.A descriptive survey approach was used. The tools used were Demographic Proforma, Self-perception Profile (Harter, 1985), Depression Self-rating Scale (Birleson, 1978) and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (Reynolds and Richmond, 1978). Purposive sampling technique was used to select sixty children (8-12 years) with chronic medical conditions in selected hospitals at Mangalore. Highest percentage (42%) of the subjects suffered from Asthma, 32% suffered from Blood disorders, 13% from Nephrotic syndrome, 10% from Arthritis and the least (2%) from Diabetes mellitus. The samples had medium level self-perception, were not likely to have depression and were experiencing a low level of anxiety. Thus, the psychological adjustment in children with chronic medical conditions was good. There was a significant negative correlation between self-perception and depression (0.485); self-perception and anxiety (-0.604) at 0.05 level of significance. Similarly there was a significant positive correlation between depression and anxiety (0.334) at 0.05 level of significance. There was a significant correlation among the subscales of self-perception; and there was a significant association of psychological adjustment with the selected demographic variables. The findings of the study showed that all the children with chronic medical conditions had a good psychological adjustment.