Self-Esteem of Hospitalized Children

Riffee, Deborah M. "SelfEsteem Changes in Hospitalized

SchoolAge Children," Nursing Research 30 2 (March

In this article, Deborah Riffee compares changes in selfesteem in three groups of late schoolage 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 selfesteem emerges when children first enter school and fluctuates as children face stress, fear, and competition throughout the school years" (p. 94). In this context, selfesteem is meant to establish the relationship which individuals form between themselves and their world. Several factors influence the development of selfesteem in the schoolage period. Riffee presents a brief overview of the previous literature in the field, but finds that a child's selfesteem 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 ageappropriate behavior" (p. 94). Certain of these behaviors; verbal withdrawal, preoccupation with bodily functions, n

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dicated that he groups were "comparable in distribution regarding sex, age, and grade in school" (p. 95). There were a total of ninetyfive children in the study, and the mean number of days the surgical subjects were hospitalized was approximately three. The children were fairly evenly distributed in terms of types of surgery, and it appears that the author's theoretical premise was sound. The measurement within the study was done by using the dependent variable, selfesteem, in the Coopersmith SelfEsteem Inventory. This procedure has an extensive list of previous tests, and is measured on a predetermined scale constituting the subject's total selfesteem index. Data for each of the subjects was collected twice: first on the initial day of the child's hospitalization, and second, one month after release from the hospital. In both cases, one or both parents were present at the interview. Children that were placed in the nonhospitalized group had their tests given during a recess period in an empty classroom. Standard statistical procedures were employed to verify the validity of the results. Riffee found that her original hypothesis was supported by the results of the study. The children that had been hospitalized did

Category: Medical - S