of 89 young adults who suffered a severe burn injury in childhood in order to assess their psychosocial adjustment to this devastating injury which usually results in visible scarring. The sample consisted of 41 males and 48 females aged 16 28 years who were 4 23 years post-burn, with a mean body surface burn of approximately 27 percent. Results indicated that most of these subjects had made a positive adjustment to their injury, as measured by three categories of adjustment: social integration, emotional adjustment and self-esteem. From the analysis of social integration, it was found that the subject population did not differ substantially from the general population in terms of marital status, education, occupation or participation in community and leisure time activities.
Analysis of emotional adjustment indicated that the subjects who were able to accept themselves and put their experience in perspective with their worldview had made a positive emotional adjustment. Self-esteem scores were comparable to established norms an
...