The concept of treatment beliefs in children and adolescents with chronic health conditions: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

Children and adolescents with chronic health conditions are faced with ongoing challenges, making self-regulation crucial. As children grow up, they gradually develop differentiated beliefs about illness and treatment. While research indicates treatment beliefs as relevant factor on outcomes like adherence, the specific contents and dimensions of children’s and adolescents’ treatment beliefs remained unclear. This scoping review therefore aimed at the identification of treatment beliefs dimensions in children and adolescents with chronic health conditions, the underlying theoretical frameworks, and methodological operationalisation. Published literature was examined by applying systematic searches in electronic databases (Medline, PsycINFO, CINAHL) and comprehensive selection criteria, resulting in 49 included studies. The predominant treatment beliefs dimensions were necessity, concerns, perceived benefits and costs/barriers, and expectations. The latter can be differentiated into outcome, social, process, and structural expectations, and expectations of one’s own role in the treatment process. In addition, dimensions that cover emotions and reasons for treatment were identified. The results are related to the methods and theoretical models applied, which were often adapted from adult research. However, additional and possibly more child-specific dimensions such as social expectations and emotions were found. This scoping review indicates several research gaps and discusses practical implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• children
• chronic diseases
• treatment beliefs
• self-regulation

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Edith Motschall for supporting the development of the search strategy. We would also like to thank Cindy Höhn for her great help in the course of the update search.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).