Kids Cope Pretty Well with Implanted Defibrillator

Kids are resilient. Children who need an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator to prevent sudden cardiac arrest do have lower levels of physical functioning than healthy kids, but they don’t exhibit clinical levels of depression or anxiety.

Kids are resilient. Children who need an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator to prevent sudden cardiac arrest do have lower levels of physical functioning than healthy kids, but they don’t exhibit clinical levels of depression or anxiety. The implanted devices, known as ICDs, monitor the heart’s rhythm and administer a shock if a dangerous irregularity is detected. Even adults can find the situation nerve wracking. To see how well children coped, Dr. David Ray DeMaso and colleagues from Children’s Hospital Boston, Massachusetts, studied 20 children ranging in age from 9 to 19, who had had been living with an ICD for about 1.5 years. The team also had the parents fill out questionnaires. The researchers report in the American Journal of Cardiology that rates of depression and anxiety were not abnormal among the children, although they appeared to have a greater need for social acceptance. Parents reported normal ratings of overall family functioning. They did report physical functioning scores for their kids that were significantly lower than normal, but they rated their psychosocial functioning as normal. Overall, however, parents perceived that their children had a lower quality of life. While the team found that anxiety, depression, family functioning, and quality of life were interrelated, they did not find that the severity of heart disease influenced these factors. (Source: American Journal of Cardiology: Reuters Health: March 2004.)