Psychosocial adjustment in children with hemifacial microsomia and other craniofacial deformities

Psychosocial adjustment was evaluated in different groups of children with craniofacial deformities in order to examine the relationships between symmetry, functional impairments, and social adaptation. Thirty patients, ages 6 through 16 years, were assessed using a battery of standard psychologic measures including Human Figure Drawing, Tasks of Emotional Adjustment, and Children's Depression Inventory. Parents and teachers also provided ratings of the children's functioning using the Child Behavior Checklist (parent and teacher forms). Scores on the outcome measures were summarized with descriptive statistics and then multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to determine the differences in psychosocial development between children with symmetric versus asymmetric craniofacial deformities and between the presence or absence of a functional impairment in children with craniofacial deformities. The results indicate that children with symmetric craniofacial deformities score poorer on measures of psychosocial adjustment than children with asymmetric deformities (F = 3.20, p less than 0.015); however, differences among the groups with or without functional impairments were not significant.