The child's conception of psychiatric cure

Twenty-two sequentially hospitalized children on a preadolescent psychiatric unit were videotaped with a semi-structured Piagetian-type interview that focused on assessing their understanding of why they were in the hospital, how they conceptualized their problems and how they thought they would get better or cured. We found six categories of "cure": 1) there was no cure for their problems; 2) cure meant reversal of some behaviors; 3) cure involved some internal change; 4) cure was equivalent to being discharged; 5) cure meant changing other people; and 6) idiosyncratic answers. Our findings suggest that it is useful to clarify a child's understanding of treatment and cure in order to target more understandable and effective treatment.