An Early Psychosocial Study Of Adolescence With Cleft Lip And/or Palate

The purpose of this study was to examine psychosocial status in Chinese adolescence with cleft lip and/or palate. Self-concept questionnaires for cl/p made by CLP surgery department of Stomatological College of Sichuan University were sent to 129 non-syndrome individuals with clefts. They were seleted as the patient-group, aged 12-24 years.100 unaffected controls, gender-, .education-and age- matched to the patient-group were selected randomly as the normal-contrast-group.Through the primary analysis of cl/p adolescences' self-concept condition,it was concluded that the cl/p adolescences were at normal psychosocial status in whole, and even better self-regulation ability than contrast-group. In self-evaluation, cl/p got lower scores than contrast group without statistical significance, which implied well self-regulation of patients; in self-confidence and acceptance of other people's evaluation, cl/p showed better psychosocial status than contrast-group; cl/p had better parenthood and higher evaluation of society, such as, feeling many people caring and helping them. Sex had not obvious influence on total psychosocial status.Comparing cpo with clp/cl, found that defect of facial appearance effected adolescence negatively, such as self-evaluation, self-confidence and social relationship, especially on social relationships. With the growth of age, facial deformation made clp/cl worse than cp in relationships with statistical significance. Cleft teenagers and their parents were not different in psychosocial status. While parents felt a little bit guilty of their children, and female parents were anxious about their daughters social relationships than male parents.