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Essay On Children's Thoughts About Illness

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Children's thoughts about illness can affect their hospitalization experience. As presented in this manuscript, thoughts are interpreted as the type of illness and illness-related concepts, such as pain or visiting the doctor. This study highlights the importance of how children of different age groups understand illness and the various topics related to illness. A child's concept of understanding of illness causality is based on their level of perceived control, anxiety, and family and school functioning. Previous literature addresses emotional support in hospitals for children. However, the way children understand illness and how they interpret it depends largely on their developmental stage. Jean Piaget thought the stress that an ill …show more content…

Anxiety was measured while children told a five-minute story and were scored using the Gottschalk and Gleser (1969) content analysis of verbal behavior. A locus of control and family relations test questioned illness-related concepts. Finally, the children's teachers reported on class functioning and intelligence. Children with diabetes mellitus had a better illness interview sum score. However, when no questions about diabetes mellitus were asked, there were no differences in the interview sum score between the two groups in their understanding of illness and its characteristics. The males performed much better than the girls and the children's ideas about illness were consistent with the developmental phases. A child's understanding of illness increased as age increased, but intellectual development was not related to illness concepts. As discussed in class, children's misconceptions of illness causation mature with age. The relationship between the children's understanding of illness and locus of control, anxiety, and family and school functioning were not statistically significant. Younger children told long stories and older children expressed more anxiety. Children with diabetes expressed more feelings of shame and experienced more over-protection. Healthy children had more positive feelings toward their mothers and less restriction. There were no correlations in anxiety and Illness Interview scores. Conservation test scores

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