Intelligence and Psychosocial Adjustment in Children Children With Congenital Heart Disease

Abstract

Children with CHD represent a population at possible high risk for developing mental and psychosocial maladjustment. The poor psychosocial development of CHD child related more highly to maternal anxiety and stress towards her child and to less extent to the child's physical incapacity. Cyanotic CHD children reported lower intelligence quotients than acyanotic children before corrective surgery that could be attributed to the adverse effects of long standing hypoxemia on CNS maturation. Surgical repair of CHD children included in this study was not associated with significant improvement in intellectual function possibly due to advanced age at operation. Sometimes surgical repair of CHD may lead to progressive impairment of social and intellectual functions when complicated with perioperative ischaemic brain injury that leads to permanent cerebral damage.