College Freshmen with Chronic Illness: A Comparison With Healthy First-Year Students

College Freshmen with Chronic Illness:A Comparison With Healthy First-Year Students Kate L. Herts (bio), Elizabeth Wallis (bio), and Gary Maslow (bio) Over the past four decades, advances in medicine have decreased the mortality rates of many previously fatal chronic diseases (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2002). Children who would have died early in life are now living well into adulthood, and many are matriculating as college students (Maslow, Haydon, McRee, Ford, Suris, Michaud, Maslow et al., 2011; Olson, 2004). Data regarding the prevalence of chronic illness among college students, the college experience of chronically ill students, and why such students are at greater risk of failing to graduate from college are limited. One study found that one third of college respondents reported some form of long-standing illness (Stewart-Brown et al., 2000). Bishop (2005) examined quality of life and psychosocial adaptation for college students with chronic illness in a sample of 72 students, most with physical disabilities or psychiatric conditions. From these data, Bishop theorized that health-related quality of life is linked to positive adaptation to student life for college students with chronic illness. Non-health-related challenges facing chronically ill students can be extrapolated from studies of chronically ill adolescents, such as one by Shiu (2001) that suggests that disruptions in peer relationships may increase educational drop-out rates. Loneliness is one construct that has been examined for college students in general and has been found to be an important mediator of health behavior correlated with depression (Ponzetti, 1990; Wisemann Yarcheski, Mahone, Yarcheski, Zullig, 2005). This scale and the related Healthy Days Index have demonstrated good construct validity and reliability in adult populations (Moriarty, Zack, Zullig, 2005). The Healthy Days Index score...