Changes in Use and Access to Care for Children and Youth With Special Health Care Needs During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Kristin Hittle Gigli, Genevieve Graaf
PMID 36216644WHAT IT FOUND
Preventive dental visits and unmet mental health care needs worsened for children with special health care needs from 2019 to 2020, while overall unmet health care need did not change.
Key findings
01Preventive dental visits among children and youth with special health care needs decreased from 85.4% in 2019 to 78.5% in 2020, and unmet mental health care needs increased from 5.1% to 7.0%.
02Overall unmet health care need, unmet specialist care need, frustration accessing care, and difficulty obtaining referrals did not change significantly.
03Among children and youth with special health care needs who reported unmet health care needs, the only adjusted barrier that increased was inability to obtain an appointment, while ineligibility for services decreased.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study cannot show that the pandemic or policy changes caused the observed differences; it compared two survey years. The 2020 survey was collected from June 2020 to January 2021, so it may not capture the full effect of the pandemic. It relies on parent-reported data, and what counts as an unmet need may differ between families and providers. The supplied text does not identify a single primary outcome among the many access measures, so individual significant findings should be read as part of a broader pattern. The paper reports broad health care use and access measures, not therapy-specific services or clinical outcomes.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that pandemic policies caused the changes in access or that children and youth with special health care needs were uniquely harmed. The study is a survey comparison, and the authors note the dental and mental health trends were consistent with the general pediatric population.