Self-esteem in children with infantile hydrocephalus and in their siblings. Use of the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale.

Self-esteem, evaluated with the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, an 80 item, self-report questionnaire, was investigated in 40 children (mean age 13.2 years) with infantile hydrocephalus (IH) and in 37 of their siblings (mean age 13.3 years). Thirty-one of the IH children had normal intelligence and 9 had mild mental retardation (MR). A comparison group consisting of 69 age-matched school children (mean age 10.3 years) was also evaluated. One-way analysis of variance indicated that the group IH with MR had the lowest mean scores, IH without MR was intermediate and the comparison group had the highest mean scores (higher scores reflect a higher reported self-esteem). No significant differences were found between the sibling group and the comparison group.