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Updated: Sep 28, 2025
Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
Health status, healthcare, and access in children with long-term medication use and difficulties with emotion,
Yuyin Yang1, Beck L Reyes2, Eufemia Jacob3
1UCLA Department of Psychology, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Insights
Children on long-term medication (LTM) often experience emotional, concentration, and behavioral (ECB) difficulties. Further evaluation is needed to understand and address these co-occurring challenges in pediatric chronic illness care.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health
- Chronic Illness Management
- Child Psychology
Background:
- Children with chronic conditions frequently exhibit emotional, concentration, and behavioral (ECB) difficulties.
- These ECB challenges are often inadequately recognized and treated.
- Long-term medication use (LTM) serves as a proxy for chronic illness in children due to diagnostic criteria limitations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the prevalence of emotional, concentration, and behavioral (ECB) difficulties in children using long-term medication (LTM).
- To analyze the characteristics and healthcare access of children experiencing both LTM and ECB challenges.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the 2017 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS).
- Selected children aged 8-12 years based on parental reports of requiring prescription medicine for a chronic condition and experiencing ECB difficulties.
- Analyzed demographic data, insurance status, healthcare utilization, and prescription delays.
Main Results:
- Children with both LTM and ECB difficulties were predominantly Caucasian (56.4%) and male (64.5%).
- This group frequently had multiple physician visits and received special therapy.
- Barriers to care included prescription delays and lack of insurance, with a significant portion relying on Medi-Cal/Medicaid.
Conclusions:
- Children on long-term medication require comprehensive evaluation for co-occurring emotional, concentration, and behavioral difficulties.
- Future research should explore the health status, healthcare utilization, and access for children with both LTM and ECB challenges.
Problem:
Children with chronic conditions often have difficulties with emotions, concentration, and behaviors (ECB) and are not recognized and treated adequately. In this paper, long-term medication use (LTM) was adopted as a proxy for chronic illness due to the lack of consistent and standardized diagnostic criteria for chronic illnesses in children.
Methods:
Children (8-12 years) were selected from the California Health Interview Survey (2017) based on: (1) households with children (<12 years), (2) parent/adult caregivers report about child's health indicating "yes" to, (3) "does your child require prescription medicine for a health condition that has lasted or is expected to last at least 12 months or more," and (4) "difficulties with ECB in past 6 months."
Findings:
A total of 1600 children were included by the CHIS data set, and children whose parental report had met the selection criteria were children with LTM (n = 144; 7.4 ± 2.9 years), ECB (n = 233; 8.16 ± 2.14), and both LTM + ECB (n = 62; 8.61 ± 1.81). Children with LTM+ ECB were Caucasian (56.4%), Hispanic (19.3%), and males (64.5%). Children with both LTM + ECB had two to three (33.87%) or at least four (53.2%) physician visits, and/or receiving special therapy (45.1%). Children with LTM had prescription delays (n = 144; 5.6%) and were not able to get medical care due to lack of insurance (n = 144; 6.9%). The majority of the children with LTM (54.2%) and LTM + ECB (43.5%) had parental employment-based insurance. More children that have both LTM and ECB (48.4%) than children with LTM, No ECB (32.9%) were on Medi-Cal/Medicaid.
Conclusion:
Children with LTM need further evaluation for difficulties with ECB. Future studies are required to examine health status, healthcare use, and access for children with LTM and ECB.
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