Beliefs and Perceptions About the Personality Characteristics of Children and Adults Suffering from a Terminal Illness (Clinical Report‪)‬

Due to medical advancements, a growing number of individuals with chronic illness are living longer than they previously would have (Newacheck & Taylor 1992; Rosina, Crisp, & Steinbeck, 2003). An estimated 31% (20 million) of children under 18 years or younger have one or more chronic illness and 71% of these children were reported to have two or more chronic illnesses (Newacheck & Taylor, 1992). The issue pertaining to the psychological health of chronically ill individuals and how they are perceived can no longer be ignored by the psychological community since many studies have shown that children and adolescents with chronic illness and disabilities are at an increased risk of psychological problems (Huurre & Aro, 2002). It should be noted that adolescents with chronic illness had twice as many depressive symptoms than non-chronically ill peers (Key, Brown, Marsh, Spratt & Recjnor, 2001). Given this understanding, it is not surprising that having a chronic illness as a child can have continuing effects on the person's well-being throughout adolescence and into adulthood (Farrant & Watson, 2004). Since there is an increase in the number of people living with a chronic or terminal illness, the ways in which these people are perceived may have overall implications for our health care system. Thus far, there has been little research on how people perceive those with chronic and terminal illness. Understanding how people perceive those with a terminal illness has implications for our health care system. A better understanding of the perceptions held about terminally ill adults and children could help improve the quality of health care terminally ill individuals receive and improve treatment within the health care system itself. Dijker and Raeijmaekers (1999) found that the seriousness of a person's illness influenced the research respondents' level of sadness and powerlessness. Given this finding, it should be expected that people perceive those with terminal and chronic illness differently than non-terminally ill people. People's perceptions of illness not only affect their ability to recognize their own symptoms, but they also influence how they react to others who are ill (Dijker & Raeijmaekers, 1999). For example, after reading correct information about an illness, participants experienced more negative feelings towards the ill person based on the type of (hypothetical) illness described and whether participants perceived the illness to be acquired through controllable or uncontrollable circumstances (Senior, Weinman & Marteau, 2002).