Prevalence of mental health problems among children placed in out-of-home care in Denmark.

This paper concerns the prevalence of mental health problems among children in family foster and residential care within a Danish context. All children, born in Denmark in 1995, who are or formerly have been placed in out-of-home care ( n= 1072), are compared with a group of vulnerable children of the same age, subjected to child protection interventions but living at home ( n= 1457, referred to as the ‘in home care children’), and to all contemporaries who are not child protection clients ( n= 71 321, referred to as the ‘non-welfare children’). Prevalence data are established on the basis of national administrative register data, including data on psychiatric diagnoses of the children, and on survey data scoring children in out-of-home care, in home care children, and non-welfare children by means of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results show that 20% of children in out-of-home care have at least one psychiatric diagnosis compared to 3% of the non-welfare children. Almost half of the children in care (48%) are, furthermore, scored within the abnormal range of SDQ, compared to 5% of the non-welfare children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]