Socioemotional and behavioural difficulties in children with chronic physical conditions: analysis of the Longitudinal Study.. 2023 David-Wilathgamuwa

Full title: Socioemotional and behavioural difficulties in children with chronic physical conditions: analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children

Objectives
To examine the prevalence of socioemotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBDs) in children with chronic physical conditions (CPCs) and to analyse how this prevalence varied with the type and number of CPCs and the age of the child.

Design
Cross-sectional study of a secondary data analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

Setting
An Australian nationally representative sample of general population of children.

Participants
15 610 children-waves aged 6–14 years.

Intervention/exposure
Children reported to have at least 1 of the 21 CPCs by their parents.

Main outcome measures
Clinically relevant SEBDs were defined using standardised cut-offs of the parent-administered Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.

Results
Children with a CPC have significantly increased odds of total, internalising and externalising SEBDs than those without (total SEBDs, adjusted odds rartio or OR 3.13, 95% CI 2.52 to 3.89), controlling for sex, age, socioeconomic status and parental mental health status. The highest prevalence of total SEBDs was found in children with chronic fatigue (43.8%), epilepsy (33.8%) and day wetting (31.6%). An increasing number of comorbid CPCs was associated with a rising prevalence of SEBDs. On average, 24.2% of children with at least four CPCs had SEBDs. These children had 8.83-fold increased odds (95% CI 6.9 to 11.31) of total SEBDs compared with children without a CPC. Age was positively related to the odds of SEBDs.

Conclusion
Children with a CPC have a significantly increased risk of having SEBDs than those without. These findings highlight the need for routine assessment and integrated intervention for SEBDs among children with CPCs.

Paywall, https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2023/04/25/archdischild-2022-325069

 

Good point. I can't read the full text and either way I find this really very potentially worrying at the likelihood that either the article itself doesn't look into whether the difficulties are externally caused by the very paradigm they are likely to push a child into (and ergo increase harm) having influenced their surroundings and ergo daily treatment, and even if not the fact most skim-read and then gel with what they want to believe unless this difference of 'situational cause - in this case the misinformation and related abuse and unkind behaviour not the illness being the cause' is underlined

I can see how this will mislead and be used for the opposite treatment than would like be helpful - which is psychology, scientific psychology taking in hand all of these touchpoints a child with chronic fatigue or ME/CFS is having to put up with treating them badly. Just like you'd have proper equality courses for any other issue or minority where micro or macro-aggressions and lack of adapting to needs was happening. Instead of pretending the issue is the person being harmed by quite unusual and counterintuitive to empathy paradigms e.g. if someone is exhausted telling them what? I mean there is probably enough to deal with if you just think about ensuring their friends 'get' the issue and are kind about it. But that would require modelling from a good system too.

I don't know regarding the situational context for those with chronic fatigue, given maybe it could be a different ilness and maybe it is just people who've been dumped into that bracket and are yet to be diagnosed with something else like ME/CFS, given it is basically a broader criteria with no guarantee anyone has bothered with exclusions in what we know about most health systems.

And I know the killer of the ME/CFS misinformation is that what causes huge pain and harm and makes people's survival impossible on a daily basis is what is promoted widely for others to do to us from all angles - and is yet to be corrected in all the touchpoints that come at us daily. It's immoral and I can't help but assume intention after all this time personally that it might be hoped it would drive people to utter sadness and madness because that isn't a Maslow's survivable world in any sense, so whoever invented it I don't know how they continue to justify it as anything other than anti-everything sustainable to health and wellbeing. For a start these people aren't stupid and know they treat people horribly and they end up feeling worse that's why they are doing this sort of research. And it ain't psychology if you aren't identifying the proper cause and beginning with the situational (not the internal)

And for that reason it probably can't be good for a condition that also just hasn't been investigated well, where there are people who it doesn't work (given if there is any evidence it'll be lowest common denominator so who knows which persons it worked a bit for then that was divided across all for a minescule divided affect that could be claimed for all).

So I really worry how divisively this will be used if said individuals get chucked under people with the same belief-issues - because psychology after all needs to match cause with treatment, and I can see a strong likelihood the cause is potentially being intensified as the treatment where someone with psychosomatic beliefs is involved there?