Publicatie

Publicatie datum

Influence of environmental and personal factors on social participation: a five year follow-up study in adolescents and young adults with IBD.

Pannekeet-Helsen, M.J.E., Calsbeek, H., Rijken, P.M. Influence of environmental and personal factors on social participation: a five year follow-up study in adolescents and young adults with IBD. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine: 2006, 13(suppl.) 123. Abstract. 9th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine, Bangkok, Thailand on 29 december 2006.
The purpose of this study is to determine the predictive effects of personal and environmental characteristics on the development of adolescents and young adults with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Examples of predictors that were examined are: coping style, optimism, parental overprotection and social support. Social functioning outcome variables include educational level, labour participation, leisure activities, loneliness, experienced competence, friendships and intimate relations. Preliminary analyses of the present five-year follow-up study indicate that, regarding social functioning, growing to maturity for young IBD patients is in general more problematic compared to healthy controls, but in adulthood most differences on the functional level have disappeared. The first global predictive analyses show several correlations between environmental and personal factors on the one hand and social participation outcome measures on the other hand. In the IBD group these relations are stronger than in the controls. Especially coping style and optimism are more important for the development of young people suffering from IBD than for their healthy counterparts. Further analyses will be carried out in order to investigate the multivariate predictive value of these factors, controlling for the T1- levels of all outcome variables. Conclusion: Suffering from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can have severe consequences for the daily life functioning of young patients, although many of the young IBD-patients we followed seem to catch up rather well in young adulthood. Personal characteristics like coping style and optimism seem to play a role in the extent to which these young patients succeed in overcoming these problems and finding a way into adulthood and the accompanying societal and interpersonal roles. Recognizing and identifying possible social restrictions and risk factors in time is the first step to support children, adolescents and their parents in order to optimize their opportunities in later life.(aut. ref.)