The relationships between self-esteem, emotional reactions and quality of life in pediatric locomotory trauma patients

The main aim of this study was to establish the relationships between several psychosocial characteristics in children and adolescents differently treated for isolated long tubular bones' fractures. Examined variables were: self-esteem, basic emotional reactions toward illness or injury including depression and anxiety, as well as perception of quality of life and social support during the treatment. Whole sample comprehends 135 patients, both gender, 10-18 years of age, treated for mentioned fractures in period 2003-2005 at the Departments of Pediatric Surgery of 3 hospitals: University Hospital Centre in Rijeka and Clinical Children's Hospital in Zagreb, both in Croatia and University Hospital in Mostar, BiH. 73 patients were treated conservatively (CT), 40 of them underwent Elastic Stable Intramedullary Nailing (ESIN) and 22 of them underwent other surgical techniques (OST). Basic methods of work were: interview to collect data for half-structured socio-demographical questionnaire, evaluation of medical records and self-reported questionnaires including: Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSS), Children Depression Inventory (CDI), Spielberg State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) and Test of Perception of Social Support (TPSS). RSS, CDI and STAI were administered to the patients at baseline and after 6 months of the trauma, while SF-36 and TPSS after 1 month of the trauma. Results of this study point to close and strong relationships between examined variables, mostly statistically significant at level p < 0.01 in all patients with fractures, regardless of the type of the treatment. There were also statistically significant differences in all variables between first and second measure; self-esteem increased and depression and anxiety decreased during the time in all patients (with different dynamics regarding the type of treatment); higher perception of social support enhanced that effect. Perception of quality of life in whole sample in summary measures was statistically significant at level p < 0.01 correlated positively with self-esteem and negatively with depression and anxiety, thus connection with perception of social support was statistically significant only in sibdomain of physical pain. There was also statistically significant difference in self-perception of quality of life related to psychosocial variables according to the type of treatment (F = 3.27; p = 0.01). Results of this study suggest that there are strong