Impairment, psychiatric symptoms, and handicap in dwarfs.

Impairment, handicap and psychiatric symptoms were systematically studied in 84 dwarfs. Although all subjects were physically impaired by virtue of their skeletal dysplasias, only those with severe physical abnormalities were handicapped in obtained education and employment. Handicap in finding marital partners was present and unrelated to physical impairment rating. Fewer than half the subjects had ever married. Men in this sample, who were often extraverted as measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory, complained less often of psychiatric symptoms and felt less stigmatized than the women subjects.