The hospitalized adolescent: Fears, stressors, and coping skills

This paper presents the findings of an investigation to determine whether of not there is a difference in hospitalized adolescents and non-hospitalized adolescents. The participants were 60 adolescents between the ages of 12 to 18 years. Their fears, stressors, and coping skills were evaluated by using three instruments: a 35-item self-report test on coping; a 108-item self-report test on fears; and a 15-item self-report test on stress. The results revealed that on specific measures hospitalized adolescents exhibited a statistically significantly less degree of emotional upset during hospitalization than did the community sample. Implications of these results in determining procedures to test stress and coping are briefly considered.