Comparison of Positive Youth Development for Youth With Chronic Conditions With Healthy Peers.

Purpose: Adolescents with childhood-onset chronic condition (COCC) are at increased risk for physical and psychological problems. Despite being at greater risk and having to deal with traumatic experiences and uncertainty, most adolescents with COCC do well across many domains. The Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective provides a framework for examining thriving in youth and has been useful in understanding positive outcomes for general populations of youth as well as at-risk youth. This study aimed to compare levels of PYD assets between youth with COCC and youth without illness.

Methods: Participants with COCC were recruited from specialty pediatric clinics while healthy participants were recruited from a large pediatric primary care practice. Inclusion criteria for participants included being (1) English speaking, (2) no documented intellectual disability in electronic medical record, and (3) aged between 13 and 18 years during the recruitment period. Univariate and bivariate analyses on key variables were conducted for adolescents with and without COCC. Finally, we performed multivariable linear regressions for PYD and its subdomains.

Results: There were no significant differences between overall PYD or any of the subdomains between the two groups. Multivariable linear regression models showed no statistically significant relationship between chronic condition status and PYD or the subdomains.

Conclusions: The findings from this study support the application of the PYD perspective to this population of youth. The results of this study suggest that approaches shown to benefit healthy youth, could be used to promote positive outcomes for youth with COCC.