Patterns of mental health problems and well-being in children with disabilities in Sweden: A cross-sectional survey and cluster analysis

Torun Täljedal; Mats Granlund; Lena Almqvist; Fatumo Osman; Eva Norén Selinus; Karin Fängström

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288815

Patterns of mental health problems and well-being in children with disabilities in Sweden: A cross-sectional survey and cluster analysis

PLoS One. 2023 Jul 18;18(7):e0288815. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288815. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Torun Täljedal^{1

2}, Mats Granlund^{3

4}, Lena Almqvist^{3

5}, Fatumo Osman^{2

6}, Eva Norén Selinus^{1

7}, Karin Fängström²

Affiliations

¹ Region Västmanland - Uppsala University, Centre for Clinical Research, Västmanland Hospital Västerås, Västerås, Sweden.
² CHAP, Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
³ CHILD Research Environment, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Mental Health, Norway Technical and Natural Sciences University, Trondheim, Norway.
⁵ School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden.
⁶ School of Health and Welfare, Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden.
⁷ The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden.

Abstract

Background: Children with disabilities have an increased risk of mental health problems. Patterns of mental health problems and well-being may vary.

Aims: To identify patterns of mental health problems and well-being in children with disabilities in Sweden, and investigate the influence of parental background (migration, education), and child cognitive level.

Method: In this cross-sectional study, cluster analysis was used to analyse parents' ratings of conduct problems, emotional symptoms, and prosocial behaviour on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in children with disabilities (n = 136). The influence of parental background (migration, education) and child cognitive level on cluster membership was explored through multinomial logistic regression.

Results: Five clusters of mental health patterns emerged. Three clusters had mean ratings near or past clinical cut-off for one each of the SDQ-subscales. One cluster had difficulties on all three subscales. Greater child cognitive difficulties increased the likelihood of low prosocial behaviour (OR 2.501, p < .001) and of difficulties on all three subscales (OR 2.155, p = .006). Parental background did not influence cluster membership.

Conclusion: Children with disabilities display varying mental health patterns. Awareness of the complexity of mental health patterns among children with disabilities is important. Screening and support for emotional symptoms and prosocial behaviour deficits should be considered for children with conduct problems.

Copyright: © 2023 Täljedal et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Child
Cluster Analysis
Cross-Sectional Studies
Disabled Children*
Humans
Mental Health*
Parents / psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires
Sweden / epidemiology

Grants and funding

This study was conducted within the CHILD-PMH (Child Participation and Mental Health) research program, which was funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR), grant number 2018-05824 (MG). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.