Prevalence and Determinants of Behavioral Problems in Children With Special Health care Needs

Background:  Parents of children with special health care needs face tremendous stress in caring for challenged children. The purpose of the study is twofold: 1) to examine the prevalence and correlates of behavioral health problems among children with special healthcare needs. 2) the impact of parental social support as a potential protective factors again childhood behavioral problems.  Methods:  The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) is a national probability survey of children that includes the physical and mental health status, access to quality health care, as well as information on the child’s family, neighborhood and social context.  Data from 5, 503 children with a diagnosis of depression, developmental disability or autism /autism spectrum disorders were weighted and analyzed using STATA 12.0 for Windows.  Alpha of 0.05 was used for all significance levels.  Results:  The sample mean age was 10.98 years of age (SD =4.39); 36.8% were female, of whom 28.5% had behavioral problems vs 41.2% males; 73% White, 10.2% African American and 16.1% Other racial groups. Two thirds (66.5%) of the children had behavioral problem. Overall, 81.% of the caregivers had social support. At the multivariate level, higher odds of behavioral problems were observed among children with depression (OR=5.2; p<0.01); developmental delays (OR=2.7; p <0.02), and caregiver frustration with the health care system (OR=3.0; p<0.001).. Conclusions:  Implications for public health social work practice will be discussed along with further results of stratified analysis.