Riffee, Deborah M. "Self Esteem Changes in Hospitalized
School Age Children," Nursing Research 30 2 (March
In this article, Deborah Riffee compares changes in self esteem in three groups of late school age children ranging in age from nine to twelve. She breaks her study down into two basic groups: those undergoing surgery and those hospitalized for nonsurgical reasons. Riffee is a clinical nurse specialist in gastroenterology and, at the time of the publication of this article, was based at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In general, Riffee believes that "development of self esteem emerges when children first enter school and fluctuates as children face stress, fear, and competition throughout the school years" (p. 94). In this context, self esteem is meant to establish the relationship which individuals form between themselves and their world. Several factors influence the development of self esteem in the school age period. Riffee presents a brief overview of the previous literature in the field, but finds that a child's self esteem is motivated even more than past research has indicated by events which occur in their external environment.
One of these external events, hospitalization and/or surgery, cases extraordinary stress within a child's daily routine and "threatens regression from age appropriate behavior" (p. 94). Certain of these behaviors; verbal withdrawal, preoccupation with bodily functions, nightmares, and voluntary avoidance of certain activities, all contribute to a metamorphasized stress level that changes the inter relationship between the child's conception of the unique individual, and the external forces which may be internalized as the cause for the surgery or stay in the hospital.
Thus, the purpose of Riffee's study was to attempt to identify some of the aspects of stress related behaviors caused by a child's stay in the hospital and how these factors relate to ...