Peer-reviewed article
3022 Barriers to Accessing Follow-up Care and Changes in Medical Needs after Childhood Injury
Bell T ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study followed 47 families of children admitted to a trauma center for 6 months to understand barriers to post-injury follow-up care and ongoing health needs. Parents reported significant challenges including difficulty scheduling specialist appointments, poor communication between providers, and uncertainty managing their child's pain and medical needs at home. At 6 months, many parents reported their children had lasting cognitive, emotional, physical, or school difficulties despite most injuries being mild or moderate in severity.
Key points
- Common barriers to follow-up care included difficulty scheduling specialists, lack of communication between providers, and caregivers feeling rushed to return children to full activities
- 24% of parents reported ongoing cognitive limitations, 29% reported emotional problems, 19% reported physical limitations, and 33% reported school difficulties at 6 months
- Families faced follow-up care challenges despite nearly universal health insurance coverage
- Parents often felt inadequately prepared to manage pain medication, wound care, and safe activity progression at home
- Study recommends coordinating specialist appointments on the same day and increasing caregiver education on post-injury management
Limitations
The study is small (50 recruited, 47 completed) and conducted at a single level 1 trauma center, so findings may not generalise to other settings or populations. The study relies entirely on parent-reported perceptions and does not include clinical verification of ongoing health needs.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The objective of this study was to prospectively assess caregiver-perceived barriers to accessing post-acute care for their injured child and determine if caregivers report ongoing, unmet health needs for their children after trauma. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This was a prospective cohort study that followed 50 participants for 6 months and administered surveys to parents of children who are admitted to a pediatric level 1 trauma center for injury. Surveys were given bi-weekly regarding care children received after hospital discharge. At 3 months, parents were surveyed over the phone on whether they were able to access all needed health services and if there were any perceived barriers to obtaining or providing at-home care. At 6 months, parents were given the Child & Family Follow-up Survey to assess ongoing physical, mental, social, and scholastic needs. Free responses and transcribed interviews were analyzed using thematic content analysis and frequencies are reported for discrete data. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Out of 50 families recruited, 47 completed follow-up assessments. At 3 months, common themes regarding challenges after hospital discharge included difficulty scheduling specialist care; uncertainty in managing their child’s pain; transitioning home without enough knowledge to meet their child’s medical needs; lack of communication between multiple providers; distress at having providers release children to full activities before caregivers were comfortable. At 6 months, approximately 24% of parents reported children had ongoing cognitive limitations, 29% reported emotional problems, 19% reported physical limitations, 33.3% reported difficulty in school, and 15% reported play/social difficulties. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Evidence suggests families face significant barriers in accessing follow-up care, despite nearly universal health insurance coverage for children. Further, a large percentage of parents report ongoing health needs, despite the majority of the cohort having only mild or moderate severity injuries. Making follow-up care more patient-centered for families of traumatically injured children may improve compliance with medical regiments and reduce the likelihood of future disability. Examples of this may be coordinating care among multiple specialty providers, so that patients with multiple injuries can schedule multiple follow-up appointments on the same day. Additionally, more caregiver education on administering pain medication, caring for wounds, and safe practices for returning to full activities would be beneficial for families.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Standard post-acute follow-up care coordination and caregiver education
- Population
- 47 children admitted to a level 1 pediatric trauma center and their caregivers, mostly with mild to moderate injuries
Key finding
24% of parents reported ongoing cognitive limitations at 6 months