Self-care support for children and adolescents with long-term health conditions
Citation: Bee PE, Pedley R, Rithalia A, et al. Self-care support for children and adolescents with long-term conditions: the REfOCUS evidence synthesis. NIHR HS&DR Journal. 2018;6(3): .
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme (UK).
What is this? Self-care support aims to boost people’s capacities and their quality of life, and improve the efficiency of health systems by reducing the financial burden. Implementing self-care support for children and adolescents with long-term health conditions may have an important role in building health systems that are resilient to shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for comparative effectiveness studies of self-care support delivered to children and young people (aged 0-18 years) with a long-term physical or mental health condition. They did not restrict their searches by date or language of publication and did the search in March 2015. They included 87 randomized trials, 4 non-randomized controlled trials and 6 controlled before-and-after studies (6), which reported on 114 interventions.
What was found: Self-care support interventions may have minimal benefits on emergency department use and the quality of life of children and adolescents with long-term conditions. Face-to-face provision and inclusion of the child or young person and their family may optimize these effects.
Self-care support interventions for children and young people may have a limited impact on hospital admissions and total healthcare costs.
The effects of self-care support interventions on other forms of health service use (e.g., primary care visits) and the costs and effects of different types of self-care support for children and young people over a range of long-term conditions (beyond asthma and other common long-term conditions) are uncertain.
Implications: The authors of the review stated that future research should assess the effects of self-care support among children and young people across a wider range of long-term conditions, and consider longer-term outcomes relating to health, the use of health services and costs; with greater involvement of various stakeholders (e.g., stakeholders concerned with policy, population, professionals or patients).
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of place of residence, education, socioeconomic status, social capital, age, disability and time-dependent relationships.
This summary was prepared by Hinda Hussein, checked by Yasmeen Saeed and Cristián Mansilla, and finalized by Mike Clarke.