Survey of emotional status in children with thalasemia in selected hospitals in ‎Rasht

Introduction: Every person's mental health determines his emotional status. Level of &lrm;happiness and unhappiness indicates how satisfactory one's emotional status is. &lrm; Physical and emotional illnesses affect happiness, especially chronic illness with several &lrm;disabilities have more affect. Among them is thalasemia with its highest incidence in children &lrm;and adolescent which affects &lrm;&rlm;100,000&rlm;&lrm; newborn in Asia each year.&lrm; &nbsp;Aim: Therefore Survey of emotional status in children and adolescent with thalasemia is &lrm;necessary to promote their condition and prevent depression and anxiety. &lrm; Methods and materials: A descriptive cross-sectional study was designed which was carried &lrm;out on &lrm;&rlm;120&rlm;&lrm; children and adolescent with thalasemia in selected hospitals in Rasht. The data &lrm;collection tool was a questionnaire included demographics and Oxford & Foradais Happiness &lrm;scale (contains &lrm;&rlm;29&rlm;&lrm; questions about emotional status). Children and adolescent completed this &lrm;questionnaire. Data were analyzed by appropriate statistical tests using spss.&lrm; Results: Findings showed that the mean scores of happiness in children and adolescent was &lrm;&rlm;15/5&rlm;&lrm;&plusmn;&lrm;&rlm;2/93&rlm;&lrm; which indicates that most children with thalesemia were not happy. There was a &lrm;significant relationship between sex and happiness (p<&lrm;&rlm;0&rlm;&lrm;/&lrm;&rlm;04&rlm;&lrm;) and boys (&lrm;&rlm;80&rlm;&lrm;.&lrm;&rlm;3%&rlm;&lrm;) were more &lrm;unhappy. There was no significant relationship between happiness and other demographic &lrm;characteristics.&lrm; Conclusion: Since majority of children and adolescent with thalasemia were unhappy, &lrm;attention to programs justified with the level of their physical and emotional health are &lrm;necessary. &lrm;