Children's conceptualization of their own psychiatric illness and hospitalization

Conscious understanding of their psychiatric hospitalization and illness was examined in 22 preadolescent children. Semistructured interviews evaluated their understanding of why they were hospitalized and its relationship to their problems. Their concepts of hospitalization fell into five categories: moralistic/punitive, adultomorphic, medical/physical, doesn't know, and due to misunderstanding. Most children described personal problems, yet believed that these were unrelated to and did not justify hospitalization.