Measurement of Family Costs of Child Mental Illness

儿童精神疾病的家庭成本衡量

• 批准号: 7008509
• 负责人: FRANCES L LYNCH
• 金额: $ 24.3万
• 依托单位: KAISER FOUNDATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-01-01 至 2007-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7008509
• 关键词: caregivers; child behavior disorders; clinical research; cost effectiveness; employment /unemployment; family structure /dynamics; health care cost /financing; health care policy; health care service evaluation; health services research tag; health surveys; human subject; interview; measurement; method development; middle childhood (6-11); patient oriented research; preschool child (1-5); questionnaires; stressor

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent studies document that children's mental health problems cause substantial stress and burden to families including perceived economic strain. However, instruments used to measure the family burden of child mental health conditions do not provide quantitative estimates of the family costs associated with child mental health problems. We define family costs as 1) monetary expenditures for goods and services related to child mental health conditions (e.g., co-payments for psychotherapy visits, expenditures by families for medications), 2) time family members spend on activities related to child mental health conditions (e.g., added time spent caregiving due to child mental health conditions, time coordinating services with insurance, providers, and schools), and 3) changes in parent employment related to child conditions (e.g., reducing or leaving paid employment due to demands related to child mental health conditions). We have identified only a few British pilot studies that have collected comprehensive data on these types of family costs associated with having a child with mental health conditions. These studies provide some guidance about important questions to ask and methodological issues in measuring family costs. However, to date, no study in the United States has collected comprehensive data on family costs related to child mental health conditions. One reason for this gap in research is lack of comprehensive survey instruments specifically designed to measure family costs related to child mental health conditions. We propose to develop and pilot test an instrument to measure the family costs associated with child mental health problems. For simplicity we will refer to the instrument as the Family Resource and Cost Survey (FRCS) hereafter. We propose to combine qualitative and quantitative methods to develop and test the feasibility and acceptability of this new instrument. This study will also allow us to obtain preliminary data needed to design a larger-scale study that will enable us to estimate the costs to families of child mental health conditions, improve cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions, and analyze financial policies affecting children with mental health conditions.

描述（由申请人提供）：最近的研究表明，儿童的心理健康问题会给家庭带来巨大的压力和负担，包括感知到的经济压力。然而，用于衡量儿童心理健康状况的家庭负担的工具并不能提供与儿童心理健康问题相关的家庭成本的定量估计。我们将家庭成本定义为 1) 与儿童心理健康状况相关的商品和服务的货币支出（例如，心理治疗就诊的自付费用、家庭的药物支出），2) 家庭成员花在与儿童心理健康状况相关的活动上的时间（例如，由于儿童心理健康状况而增加了照顾孩子的时间，与保险、提供者和学校协调服务的时间），以及 3) 与儿童状况相关的父母就业变化（例如，减少或放弃带薪就业）与儿童心理健康状况相关的要求）。我们只发现了一些英国试点研究，这些研究收集了与养育患有心理健康问题的孩子相关的此类家庭成本的全面数据。这些研究为衡量家庭成本时需要提出的重要问题和方法问题提供了一些指导。然而，迄今为止，美国还没有研究收集与儿童心理健康状况相关的家庭成本的全面数据。研究差距的原因之一是缺乏专门设计来衡量与儿童心理健康状况相关的家庭成本的综合调查工具。我们建议开发并试点测试一种工具来衡量与儿童心理健康问题相关的家庭成本。为简单起见，我们下文将该工具称为家庭资源和成本调查 (FRCS)。我们建议结合定性和定量方法来开发和测试这种新工具的可行性和可接受性。这项研究还将使我们能够获得设计更大规模研究所需的初步数据，使我们能够估计儿童心理健康问题家庭的成本，改进干预措施的成本效益分析，并分析影响心理健康问题儿童的财务政策。健康状况。