The Impact of Congenital Heart Disease on the Psychological Well Being and Quality of Life in the Hong Kong Chinese Adolescents

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common type of congenital malformation in the world with birth prevalence as 8 per 1000 live births. Survival rate has been drastically improved as a result of improvement in surgical treatments and intensive care but adolescents with CHD still suffer from limitations on their psychological functioning and restrained quality of life. Number of evidences have indicated that adolescents with CHD experience more depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem level than their healthy counterparts. In addition, adolescents with CHD are more prone to develop emotional and behavioral problems than their healthy norms. Given the above issues, It is imperative for nurses to develop psychological interventions to promote psychological well-being among adolescents with CHD, with the goal of improving their quality of life. There have been increasing concerns worldwide on the quality of life of such population especially on how does the disease pose threats on their daily living. However, at present, there is no study examining how does CHD affect the psychological well-being and quality of life in Hong Kong Chinese adolescents. It is explicit that Hong Kong has a distinctively different cultural context from that of the West. Hence, the effects of CHD and its treatments are likely to differ markedly in the two regions .To conclude, results of previous studies from the West may not fit into Hong Kong Chinese cultural context.