Emotional functioning of adolescents and adults with congenital heart disease: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to quantitatively compare findings of emotional functioning across studies of adolescents and adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) through meta-analysis.

Design: The current meta-analysis included 22 studies of adolescent and adult survivors of CHD who completed measures of emotional functioning. Effect sizes were represented by Hedge's g. Heterogeneity was calculated and possible moderators (i.e., lesion severity, age, study location, study quality) were examined.

Results: Overall, adolescent and adult survivors of CHD did not differ in emotional functioning from healthy controls or normative data. However, significant heterogeneity was found, and there was a trend for degree of lesion severity to moderate emotional functioning. Further analysis of lesion severity indicated that individuals with moderate lesions reported better emotional functioning than controls/normative data. Limitations in existing literature precluded examination of patient age as a moderator. Study location and quality did not explain a significant portion of the variance in effects.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that differences in emotional functioning may exist across lesion severities, and individuals with moderately severe lesions are emotionally thriving. Given the diversity within CHD lesion classifications, future studies should include other indicators of disease severity, such as measures of morbidity, to determine how disease may affect emotional functioning among survivors of CHD. Furthermore, authors and journals need to ensure that research is reported in enough detail to facilitate meta-analysis, a critically important tool in answering discrepancies in the literature.

Keywords: Emotional Distress; Emotional Functioning; Meta-Analysis.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to report.

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Figures

Figure 1

Identification of studies for inclusion in the meta-analysis.

Figure 2

Forest plot depicting results for emotional distress among all observed studies. †The boxes on the forest plot vary in size depending on the weight of the study in the meta-analysis. The diamond represents the pooled effect size.

Figure 3

Forest plot depicting results by lesion severity. †The boxes on the forest plot vary in size depending on the weight of the study in the meta-analysis. The diamond represents the pooled effect size. Abbreviations: Com, complex; Mod, moderate; Sim, simple.