Views of healthy children toward illness

Abstract

In this study of 408 healthy school age children, selected from the first, third, and fifth grades, who responsed to questionnaires on illness and general anxiety, it was found that these children possessed different views of illness than do ill hospitalized children. Analysis of the data indicated that children who scored high on the general anxiety test also scored high on the illness anxiety test. Only these anxious children perceived illness as a possible punishment for their misbehavior and saw it as a disruptive force in their lives. Healthy, nonanxious children frankly rejected to the possibility that misbehavior caused illness, or that their parent's reactions were negative, or that illness was disruptive to their lives.