RESUMO
Thank to medical and surgical improvements, a very high percentage of children with congenital heart disease (CHD; about 1% of newborn) reaches adulthood. This population of young surgical and medical patients opens up new challenges in clinical management, including evaluation and optimization of psychosocial functioning and quality of life. Data regarding neurocognitive and psychopathological adaptation, personality and quality of life of CHD patients are rather extensive but still insufficient to guide management approaches to these subjects and to address the numerous emerging problems. The present review analyzes extensively the research literature to find out those variables that may influence development of CHD children. It emerges that a multi-factorial process seems involved in the poor outcome of neurocognitive development in many patients. Notwithstanding the attempts to define risk factors, current researches do not consent definitive conclusions about the determinants of developmental problems in CHD children. An improvement of existential outcome for CHD subjects may be achieved if adequate interventions are carried out. In fact, psychopathological and quality of life in CHD subjects may result even better if elaboration of disease by CHD subjects is adequately supported. On one hand, genetic factors that may contribute to unfavourable evolutions suggest the need for early recognition of subjects at risk. On the other, research should be addressed to the identification of those protective and risk factors related to personality, environmental and relational aspects entailed in the development of CHD subjects.
