The burden of disability in children and youths associated with impairments of psychological functions

The immense burden of health conditions in children that is associated with mental disorders worldwide is increasingly being recognized. In comparison, the burden of disability associated with children's impairments of psychological functions (IPFs) is not well documented. The goal of this population-based study was to derive a measure of the burden of disability in children associated with IPFs that takes into account the highly variable impact such impairments might have on children's everyday activities. Data came from the 2001 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, a national survey of individuals with disabilities living in Canada. Latent class analysis was used to obtain a maximum likelihood estimate of the proportion of children with IPFs living in Canada who were severely limited in their everyday activities, by age and sex. As expected, the burden of disability was not evenly shared among children with IPFs. In fact, only a minority of children with IPFs were severely limited in their everyday activities. This represents approximately 15% of 5–14 year-old boys with a disability and 10% of their female counterparts living in Canada. These estimates provide a better appraisal of the burden of disability in children associated with IPFs than previous estimates, which only considered the presence or absence of IPFs.