Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T05:45:05.621Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adolescents’ drawings of their cardiac abnormality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2011

QiFeng Wang ,
Margaret Hay ,
David Clarke  and
Samuel Menahem
QiFeng Wang*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Margaret Hay
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
David Clarke
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Samuel Menahem
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Department of Paediatrics, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia Monash Heart, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia
*
Correspondence to: Q. Wang, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, 246 Clayton Road, Clayton, Melbourne, 3168, Australia. Tel: 61 3 959 41479; Fax: 61 3 959 41666; E-mail: qfting@hotmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Following advances in overall management and improved outcomes, an increasing number of adolescents with cardiac disease are reaching adult age. Patients in general, including adolescents, seem to have a poor knowledge of their illness, which may further reflect in a less optimal quality of life. As a guide to their knowledge of their cardiac condition, adolescents were asked to draw a diagram of their cardiac abnormality. Relatively well adolescents aged 12–20 years with a cardiac abnormality were consecutively recruited from an ambulatory setting. All were asked to draw a picture of their cardiac abnormality and describe their condition. A total of 120 patients were recruited and had conditions varying from a hyperplastic right ventricle to a small ventricular septal defect. Only 60 (50%) of the patients completed a drawing, of which one-third did so at the time of attendance. Nevertheless, there was no difference between the accuracy of the adolescents’ drawings completed at home or at the clinic. Only three patients drew an accurate diagram of their congenital cardiac abnormality. A further nine patients drew a reasonably correct diagram, 13 patients a partially correct diagram, whereas 35 patients submitted incorrect diagrams. Adolescents with congenital cardiac disease, many having been cared for since infancy with regular cardiological reviews, had a poor anatomical knowledge of their cardiac lesion, as reflected by their inability to correctly draw their abnormality. These findings suggest the need for improved strategies in developing appropriate education programmes for this patient population.

Keywords

Congenital cardiac diseasecardiac diagramsknowledge
Type
Original Articles
Information
Cardiology in the Young , Volume 21 , Issue 5 , 09 September 2011 , pp. 556 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Rosemond, W, Flegal, K, Friday, G, et al. Heart disease and stroke statistics – 2007 update: a report from the American Heart Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee. Circulation 2007; 115: e69–e171.Google Scholar
2.Veldtman, GR, Matley, SL, Kendall, L, et al. Illness understanding in children and adolescents with heart disease. Heart 2000; 84: 95–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
3.Matley, SL. Understanding, beliefs, and behaviour: a study of children with congenital heart defects. Doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, 1997; 19–24.Google Scholar
4.Eiser, C, Town, C, Tripp, JH. Illness experience and related knowledge amongst children with asthma. Child Care Health Dev 1988; 14: 11–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5.Eiser, C, Patterson, D, Tripp, JH. Illness experience and children's concepts of health and illness. Child Care Health Dev 1984; 10: 157–162.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
6.Chessa, M, De Rosa, G, Pardeo, M, et al. Illness understanding in adults with congenital heart disease. Ital Heart J 2005; 6: 895–899.Google ScholarPubMed
7.Martin, E. Flexible Bodies: Tracking Immunity in American Culture – from the Days of Polio to the Age of AIDS. Beacon, Boston, 1994.Google Scholar
8.Champion, M, Noettes, AD, Taboulet, P, Lemerle, S. Secrecy in children with HIV infection. Archives de Pédiatrie 1999; 6: 1101–1108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9.Diem-Wille, G. Atherapeutic Perspective: the Use of Drawings in Child Psychoanalysis and Social Science. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2001.Google Scholar
10.Williams, D, Wetton, N, Moon, A. A Picture of Health: What Do You Do That Makes You Healthy and Keeps You Healthy? Health Education Authority, London, 1989.Google Scholar
11.Bendelow, G, Pridmore, P. Children's images of health. In Petersen A, Waddell C (eds). Health Matters: A Sociology of Illness, Prevention and Care. Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1998: 128–140.Google Scholar
12.Bendelow, G, Oakley, A, Williams, S. It makes you bald: children's beliefs about health and cancer prevention. Health Edu 1996; 96: 8–15.Google Scholar
13.Williams, S, Bendelow, G. “Recalcitrant bodies”? Children, cancer and the transgression of corporeal boundaries. Health Qual Life Outcomes 2000; 4: 51–71.Google Scholar
14.Fury, G, Carlson, E, Sroufe, A. Children's representations of attachment relationships in family drawings. Child Dev 1997; 68: 1154–1164.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15.Guillemin, M. Understanding illness: using drawings as a research method. Qual Health Res 2004; 14: 272–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
16.Hay, M. The effect of sex education on pre-adolescent's knowledge of human sexual development and reproduction. Doctoral thesis, LaTrobe Univerity, 2001.Google Scholar
17.Wang, QF. Adolescents’ knowledge of their cardiac abnormality and its relationship with their cardiac-related quality of life. Int Med J 2010; 40 (Suppl 1): 60–61.Google Scholar
18.Ley, P. Improving patients’ understanding, recall, satisfaction and compliance. In Broome A (ed.). Health Psychology. Chapman and Hall, London, 1989: 74–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19.Cheuk, DKL, Wong, SMY, Choi, YP, Chau, AKT, Cheung, YF. Parents’ understanding of their child's congenital heart disease. Heart 2004; 90: 435–439.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed