Abstract
This study was designed to determine how internal behaviors of children with congenital heart disease were handled by their mothers. The study group included the mothers of 96 children randomly selected (ages ranging from 4 to 11 years) who were being monitored at the Institute of Cardiology. A 21-item questionnaire was administered to obtain information about the mother and the child. Internal subsets of the Child Behavior Check List (CBCL)/4-18 were performed, including withdrawn aggressive behaviors, somatic complaints, and anxiety/depression tests. The results showed that factors influencing withdrawn aggressive behavior were low parent education (p =.000), poor economic status of the family (p =.02), and aggravation of the hemodynamic status of the disease (p =.003). The factors influencing somatic complaints were low parent education (p =.000) and severity of the hemodynamic status of the disease (p =.02). An increase in the number of children in the family seemed to have an effect on anxiety/depression levels (p =.009).