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Background: Teenagers represent a small proportion of patients on paediatric intensive care units (PICU) in the United Kingdom. During a time when their development is rapidly changing, an admission to PICU causes additional disruption. The impact of critical illness on psychological health after discharge has not been widely reported within this population. Aim and objectives: To measure anxiety that teenagers report 48‐96 hours and 4 weeks after discharge from PICU. To explore teenagers' experiences of being admitted onto PICU. Design: Two‐phase mixed methods, explanatory sequential design. Methods: This single‐site study was conducted between February and July 2018. An NHS Ethics committee approved the study. Teenagers were screened if they were aged 13‐18 years old and had an elective or emergency admission to PICU for longer than 24 hours. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Anxiety subscale (HADS‐A) was administered on paper and completed with the researcher present. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted in‐person and over the telephone, audio‐recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Nine of eighteen participants (50%) obtained scores indicating levels of anxiety which were mild (n = 3; 17%), moderate (n = 2; 11%), or severe (n = 4; 22%) 48‐96 hours after PICU discharge. Four weeks later, all participants scored below the clinically significant cut‐off level for the HADS‐A‐1 Teenagers described their experiences on PICU within three themes:Memories of treatments, side effects, and the PICU environmentLosing a sense of selfFeeling cared for Conclusions: Measured levels of anxiety had resolved in this small sample, 4 weeks after PICU discharge. This finding was not consistent with qualitative data that indicated that many experiences shared by participants were anxiety provoking. Relevance to clinical practice: Support for teenagers after PICU discharge should be available to meet individual needs; screening teenagers to identify support needs would be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Material deprivation is an important determinant of health inequalities in adults but there remains debate about the extent of its importance for adolescent wellbeing. Research has found limited evidence for an association between adolescent health and socio-economic status, leading authors to suggest that there is an ‘equalisation’ of health across socio-economic groups during the adolescent stage of the life-course. This paper explores this ‘equalisation’ hypothesis for adolescent psychological wellbeing from a geographical perspective by investigating associations between neighbourhood deprivation and self-esteem in Britain and Canada. Data from the British Youth Panel (BYP) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) on adolescents aged 11–15 for the time period 1994–2004 were used to estimate variations in low self-esteem between neighbourhoods using multilevel logistic regression. Models were extended to estimate associations between self-esteem and neighbourhood deprivation before and after adjustment for individual and family level covariates. Moderation by age, sex, urban/rural status, household income and family structure was investigated. There were no significant differences in self-esteem between the most deprived and most affluent neighbourhoods (Canada unadjusted OR = 1.00, 95% CI 0.76, 1.33; Britain unadjusted OR = 1.25, 95% CI 0.74, 2.13). The prevalence of low self-esteem was higher (in Canada) for boys in the least deprived neighbourhoods compared to other neighbourhoods. No other interactions were observed. The results presented here offer some (limited) support for the socio-economic equalisation in youth hypothesis from a geographical perspective: with specific reference to equalisation of the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and self-esteem and psychological health in early adolescence. This contrasts with previous research in the United States but supports related work from Britain. The lack of interactions with key social and economic variables suggests that findings might apply across a range of family circumstances and different communities in Britain and Canada. Policy implications are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]