Related Experiment Videos
Psychosocial integration of adolescents and young adults with thalassemia major
1Pediatric Department, S. Anna Hospital, Ferrara, Italy.
Unlabelled:
The aim of this study was to explore the effect of thalassemia major on the psychosocial adjustment of adolescents and young adults.
Design:
unmarried adolescent and young adult patients were asked to fill in an ad hoc questionnaire; a semi-structured interview exploring marriage and family life was done with married patients.
Sample:
group A: 90 unmarried patients, 50% females and 50% males, aged 14-22 years. The control group was formed by 100 matched subjects; group B: 19 thalassemic married subjects, 6 males and 13 females, aged 28-45 years, 7 patients had children and 12 did not.
Results:
group A: subjects with thalassemia had normal psychological and social development and scored better than their normal peers in tests investigating social adjustment, self-esteem and self-description. Moreover the family relationships of adolescents with thalassemia appeared to be stronger than those reported by normal controls; group B: the behavior of thalassemic couples did not differ from the one observed in non-thalassemic couples in the course of previous investigations.
Conclusions:
Our data shows that neither thalassemic adolescents nor thalassemic married, well-treated, young adults differ significantly from the healthy young people in their ability to cope with life's difficulties both in adolescence and marital life.