Hospitalisations for chronic conditions among care experienced and general population children and young people: evidence from the Children’s Health in Care in Scotland (CHiCS) cohort study, 1990–2016

Objective
There is limited evidence on how the physical health of children and young people (CYP) who are care experienced (eg, in foster or out-of-home care) compares to the general population. UK research suggests that the prevalence of some chronic conditions may be similar for these groups.

Design
We undertook longitudinal population-wide data linkage of social care, prescription and hospitalisation records for care experienced and general population CYP born 1990–2004, followed from birth to August 2016. We compared prevalence estimates for asthma, diabetes (type 1) and epilepsy between the cohorts and used Poisson and survival models to estimate the association between social care and hospitalisations for these conditions.

Results
Care experience was not associated with a higher prevalence of asthma and diabetes, but epilepsy was more prevalent. Care was associated with increased hospitalisation rates for all three conditions, particularly for males. HRs for hospitalisations were highest before and after care and lower while the child was in care, for diabetes these were, respectively 1.88 (95% CI 1.28 to 2.77), 2.40 (95% CI 1.55 to 3.71) and 1.31 (95% CI 0.91 to 1.88) for care experienced CYP compared with general population.

Conclusions
Hospitalisations for chronic conditions are higher among care experienced CYP, particularly for males, and outside care episodes. Families with children with chronic conditions should be offered support to manage these conditions and help keep families together. Higher hospitalisations after care suggest that care leavers should be provided more support to help manage their health.