Jornal de Depressão e Ansiedade
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A Clinical Report: Mental health, Self-esteem and Social Interaction in Adolescents with CL/P in the Context of Re-constructive Surgery

Birgitta Johansson Niemelä, Valdemar Skoog, Tor-Göran Henriksson and Viveka Sundelin Wahlsten

Background: Self-esteem in children and adolescents with deviances in function and appearance has been studied with diverse results. The effect of cleft lip/ and palate on mental health, self-esteem and social interaction were studied in the context of reconstructive surgery. Comparing parents’ and children’s’ self-esteem reports was also of interest. Exploring these differences could help the understanding of future mental health in patients with CL/P and their need for reconstructive surgery.

Methods: A descriptive study within an in-patient setting, Plastic Surgery Clinic, Uppsala University Hospital. Twenty-six CL/P patients between 13 and 19 years of age and their parents answered a specific condition questionnaire specially adapted for this study and Beck’s Youth Inventories the day before reconstructive surgery.

Results: Mental health was affected while self-esteem was on a median-high level for this CL/P group. Parents rated their children to have higher self-esteem as they grew older. However, females reported a diminished level from primary to secondary school age. Attention on CLP was high. Twenty-three adolescents, or 85 % of resondents, wanted to change their appearance,

Conclusion: Mental health was affected by CL/P, especially for those children that had been bullied. Specifically, the wish to change appearance was associated with high level of anxiety and depression . The specific condition questionnaires proved to be more informative than the standardized measure regarding self-esteem under development for the sake of differentiating between parent-adolescent estimation of self-estee