1. Health status, healthcare, and access in children with long‐term medication use and difficulties with emotion, concentration, and behavior.
- Author
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Yang, Yuyin, Reyes, Beck L., and Jacob, Eufemia
- Subjects
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HEALTH services accessibility , *CAREGIVERS , *CHRONIC diseases , *TIME , *HEALTH status indicators , *BEHAVIOR , *RETROSPECTIVE studies , *ATTENTION , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *EMOTIONS , *INSURANCE - Abstract
Problem: Children with chronic conditions often have difficulties with emotions, concentration, and behaviors (ECB) and are not recognized and treated adequately. In this paper, long‐term medication use (LTM) was adopted as a proxy for chronic illness due to the lack of consistent and standardized diagnostic criteria for chronic illnesses in children. Methods: Children (8–12 years) were selected from the California Health Interview Survey (2017) based on: (1) households with children (<12 years), (2) parent/adult caregivers report about child's health indicating "yes" to, (3) "does your child require prescription medicine for a health condition that has lasted or is expected to last at least 12 months or more," and (4) "difficulties with ECB in past 6 months." Findings: A total of 1600 children were included by the CHIS data set, and children whose parental report had met the selection criteria were children with LTM (n = 144; 7.4 ± 2.9 years), ECB (n = 233; 8.16 ± 2.14), and both LTM + ECB (n = 62; 8.61 ± 1.81). Children with LTM+ ECB were Caucasian (56.4%), Hispanic (19.3%), and males (64.5%). Children with both LTM + ECB had two to three (33.87%) or at least four (53.2%) physician visits, and/or receiving special therapy (45.1%). Children with LTM had prescription delays (n = 144; 5.6%) and were not able to get medical care due to lack of insurance (n = 144; 6.9%). The majority of the children with LTM (54.2%) and LTM + ECB (43.5%) had parental employment‐based insurance. More children that have both LTM and ECB (48.4%) than children with LTM, No ECB (32.9%) were on Medi‐Cal/Medicaid. Conclusion: Children with LTM need further evaluation for difficulties with ECB. Future studies are required to examine health status, healthcare use, and access for children with LTM and ECB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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