Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the impact on emotional, social, physical and educational functioning of a therapeutic recreation camp provided by ‘Over The Wall’, a UK charity for children and young people with chronic illness or disability. Method Two hundred and sixty four people registered to attend camp were sent the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory version Child Self-Report Scale before camp, immediately after camp, 1 month after camp and 3 months after camp. Results Of those invited to participate, 178 children completed the pre-camp survey (67% response rate). Of those, 105 completed both the post-camp 1 and pre-camp questionnaires (59% of pre-camp respondents), and 60 of those participants subsequently completed the 1-month post-camp questionnaire as well (34% of pre-camp respondents). Only 32 participants completed the 3-month follow-up data (18% of pre-camp respondents). Across the first three timepoints (pre-Camp, post-Camp and 1 month follow-up), a repeated measures ANOVA indicated a significant improvement in emotional and social functioning, but not physical or school functioning ( p < 0.05). Post-hoc analyses on pre-camp and post-camp scores revealed small-medium effect sizes of 0.317 and 0.272 for emotional and social functioning, respectively. Discussion The therapeutic recreation summer camp provided for children and young people with health challenges had a significant, positive impact on emotional and social functioning. Such camps can therefore be considered as having empirical support for their aims. Further work is warranted to increase the response rate to establish the longer term impact of the camps and the wider impact of the camps on the wider family.
This entry reviews common methods for assessing adolescents' mental disorders, including interviews, questionnaires, and observation methods. Cultural issues regarding application of these assessments across ethnic groups are discussed. These cultural considerations include (1) how differences in cultural values may affect the experience and expression of psychopathological symptomatology, (2) how assessment items are framed and understood in specific cultural contexts, (3) how social norms and cultural values may generate specific response biases depending on the response options offered, and (4) concern over the translation and cross‐cultural adaptation of assessment instruments.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.