An Investigation About The Health And Dysfunctioning Of Hospitalised Adolescents

Objective To analyze the pubertal development, psycho-social strengths and difficulties, health related dysfunctional status and family functioning of hospitalised adolescents. Thus to understand the physio-psycho-social health of hospitalised adolescents systematically so as to lay the foundation for exploring appropriate health interventions and promoting health and development of hospitalised adolescents.Subjects and methods Convenience sampling was used and314hospitalised adolescents from three third-class A level hospitals in Shandong Province were recruited in the study. From August1st to31st in2011, these subjects were investigated using questinnaires, which including basic information sheet, pubertal development scale (PDS), World Health Organization disability assessment schedule2.0(WHODAS Ⅱ), the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) and family functioning scale (APGAR). Descriptive analysis, nonparametric test (Mann-Whitney U test for comparison between two groups, Kruskal-Wallis test for comparison including more than two groups, chi-square test) were used with SPSS16.0for Windows in this study.Results The subjects were14.1(s=2.87) years old on average. Among the subjects, there were214(68.2%) boys and100(31.8%) girls. The detail results were as follows:1.The PDS score was2.0(s=0.77) for boys and2.5(s=0.96) for girls on average.χ2test found that there was a significant difference between boys and girls in PCS stages (χ2=64.23,P<0.001, n=313). The frequency distribution in each PCS stages was relatively fair.2.The total score of WHODAS Ⅱ was58.6(s=19.76) and the average item score was1.6(1.4-2.7,s=0.25), which was among "1=no" and "2=mild". Significant differences were found by Kruskal-Wallis test between hospitalised adolescents living in different places in aspects of six life domain scores and total score of WHODAS Ⅱ (all P<0.001), especially between adolescents living in urban areas and rural areas.3.The overall score of SDQ was10.0(s=4.69). The prevalence rate of total difficulties was7.3%.7.3%of subjects had emotional symptoms,5.4%had conduct problems,6.4%had hyperactivity inattention and4.5%had peer problems. Kruskal-Wallis test found that there was a significant difference between hospitalised adolescents living in different places in two dimension scores of emotional symptoms (χ2=7.45, P=0.024, n=310) and prosocial behaviours (χ2=15.88, P<0.001, n=310) for SDQ.4.The average score of APGAR was7.3(s=2.03). There were68.8%,27.3%and3.9%of adolescents had highly functional families, moderately dysfunctional families and severely dysfunctional families respectively. A significant difference was found between hospitalised adolescents living in different places in APGAR score (χ2=8.50, P=0.014, n=305) by Kruskal-Wallis test.5.Significant differences existed in two life domain scores of self-care (χ2=16.65, P=0.002, n=313), getting along with others (χ2=12.66,P=0.013, n=312) for WHODAS Ⅱ and in two dimension scores of hyperactivity inattention (χ2=11.42, P=0.022, n=312), prosocial behaviours (χ2=9.88, P=0.043, n=312) for SDQ between subjects in different PCS stages. Significant differences also existed in two dimension scores of hyperactivity inattention (χ2=7.51, P=0.023, n=308) and prosocial behaviours (χ2=11.75,P=0.003, n=308) in SDQ between subjects with different family functionings.Conclusion With the increasing of ages, pubertal development tends to maturation and girls are growing earlier than boys. Compared with healthy adolescents, hospitalised adolescents have certain health related dysfunctions due to the health problems. There is no significant increase in the prevalence rate of psycho-social problems. Almost one third of adolescnts in this study do not have highly functional families and the satisfaction for family affection is the lowest. There is less difficulties in self-care and getting along with others and more prosocial behaviours when the pubertal development becomes maturer. Family functioning is very important for the development of prosocial behaviours and attention of hospitalised adolescents. There are differences between adolescents living in different places in aspects of health related dysfunctional status, psycho-social development and family functioning. The situations are worse for hospitalised adolescents from rural areas than those from urban areas in the above factors. The results can provide the basis for finding the health service requirement and promoting the physio-psycho-social health of hospitalised adolescents.