PATTERNS OF ILLNESS EXPERIENCES

[摘要] This report is concerned chiefly with individual differences in the patterns of total illnesses as revealed by number and Score of each child's illness experiences at successive age periods and in relation to Total Childhood. Marked differences are revealed for each child, by age periods and between individuals at the same ages. Differences with age have been found in the average Score for illness based upon differences in the type, severity and duration of illnesses. The Preschool Period has been found to be the age of maximum Scores and numbers, for both sexes, with the Periods of Infancy, School, Early Adolescence and Late Adolescence having diminishing incidents, in this order.It is planned to report in a subsequent paper the findings from these children relating to the different categories of illness, comprising the totals here reported and their variable relationships by age and sex.The records of the total illnesses experienced by each child in the Maturity Series have been summarized in terms of number and Score for Total Childhood and for each of five age-period subdivisions. Score and number have been combined by letter symbols to provide a Rating for each period. The sequences of these Ratings reveal the Pattern of illness experiences encountered among these children and the number of children alike or closely similar in their sequences. A series of Patterns have emerged based on Total Rating and the age period in which the child had the maximum Rating.No comparison is made in this paper between the present findings and earlier studies of others of the incidence of illnesses in childhood. Many of these studies have been of populations of children by age groupings and a few have been short-term longitudinal ones. In addition, most published studies deal with the relative frequencies of categories of illnesses. The authors believe that a more constructive discussion of findings by others can be presented in a subsequent paper which will deal with categories of illness.

[学科分类] 儿科学