Using the 1988 National Health Interview Surey (NHLS) and the Child Health Supplement (CHS), this study addresses the relationship between self-care and emotional health and health services use among 6-12 year olds.
The SPECIFIC AIMS are to determine the prevalence of self-care among 6-12 year olds, overall and by population subgroups; the prevalence of chronic medical/psychological conditions in children regularly in self-care and in those not, overall and by subgroups; the number of physician visits made n the prior year by those regularly in self-care and by those not, overall and by subgroups; and whether there is an association between self-care status, physical or emotional conditions, and physician use, overall any by population subgroups. Study data are drawn from the NHIS and CHS, instruments designed to provide national data on the incidence of acute/chronic illnesses, injuries, health care use, among others. for this study, DATA RELATED TO CHILD-CARE (regular caretaking arrangements; does child care for self?); FAMILY DEMOGRAPHICS (region and stability of residence; child's age, sex, grade; parental education/occupations; family income, size, structure; health insurance); CHILD HEALTH/BEHAVIOR (number/reasons for doctor visits in previous year: physical/emotional chronic conditions; school absentessim or conduct problems in the past year; bed or disability days due to illnesses/injuries; parent's perception of child's health; problem behaviors as measured by the Behavior Problem Scale; use of/need for professional care of emotional/behavior problems. A composite measure of family stress will be developed using the ratio of household members to rooms; change in residence, parental separation, sib birth in past year; and activity limitation of members due to chronic condition. The ANALYTIC PLAN include: creation of working SAS file from the NHLS and CHS raw data tapes; review of univariate distributions to identify and recode """"""""out-of-range"""""""" codes, to determine whether and how to aggregate values, and to determine whether transformations are needed for continuous variables; bivariate analysis such as contingency tables and correlation matrices to explore the self-care; and multivariate analysis to measure the prevalence of self-care in subgroups defined by two or more sociodemographic variables, and to assess the importance of self-care as a determinant of child problem behaviors when controlling for sociodemographic variables, family stress, and other measures of health.
