Can the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA) be used as an indicator of psychosocial outcome in adolescents with chronic physical disorders?

• Published in: European child & adolescent psychiatry 1999-06, Vol.8 (2), p.78-85
• Main Authors: AASLAND, A, DISETH, T. H
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Adjustment; Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior - psychology; Adolescents; Anorectal; Arthritis; Arthritis, Juvenile - psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child Behavior Checklist; Chronic Disease; Chronic sickness; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents; Health Status; Humans; Illness and personality; Indicators; Internalization; Male; Mood; Perception; Perceptions; Personal appearance; Personality, behavior and health; Psychological tests; Psychology and medicine; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychosocial factors; Questionnaires; Self Concept; Self image; Selfworth; Social acceptance; Social Adjustment; Social Behavior; Social skills; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teenagers
• ISSN: 1018-8827; 1435-165X
• DOI: 10.1007/s007870050088

To explore the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA) as an indicator of psychosocial outcome in adolescents with chronic physical disorders, we administered the questionnaire along with other well-established measures of psychosocial outcome (the semistructured Child Assessment Schedule (CAS) interview and the Youth Self Report (YSR) and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) questionnaires) to one group of diseased adolescents with good psychosocial adjustment (juvenile chronic arthritis, JCA) and one with a high level of psychosocial maladjustment (anorectal anomalies, ARA). The adolescents with ARA had significantly lower scores of global self-worth, school competence, and social acceptance as compared to the adolescents with JCA. However, global self-worth in neither group was impaired as compared with that of the general Norwegian adolescent population. Perceived physical appearance was the single self-concept domain accounting for the variance in global self-worth (R2 = 0.71, p < 0.001). Among the other measures of psychosocial outcome, global self-worth was most strongly related to mood according to the CAS interview (r = -0.53, p < 0.001) and to the YSR internalizing score (r = -0.53, p < 0.001). Our findings indicate that the SPPA has limited ability to identify chronically diseased adolescents with adverse psychosocial outcome.