Queen's University Belfast

Academic Institute

Economic and Social Research Council

Yes

112

With recent advances in paediatric medicine, most children with significant childhood onset chronic diseases are expected to survive into adulthood. The three chronic diseases that we will investigate in this project are asthma, type 1 diabetes mellitus and epilepsy. Whilst the direct health effects of these chronic diseases are well known, the socioeconomic consequences are still relatively unidentified. In addition to the physical symptoms associated with chronic diseases, other factors may be affecting a child’s engagement with school, and resulting in poor educational attainment. For example, as well as regular attendance for routine clinic appointments these children also have more frequent sick days and increased rates of hospital admissions compared to their peers, especially if their chronic condition is not well controlled. These factors lead to children with chronic diseases having poorer school attendance than their peers. Studies have found that the cognitive effects of their disease or treatment, and prioritisation of their health over their education are risk factors for educational problems in children with chronic diseases. While many studies have focused on neurocognitive test results in these children, fewer studies have specifically examined the educational outcomes. This project will aim to investigate the relationship between childhood chronic diseases and GC level results whilst adjusting for individual, household and arealevel factors that may confound the relationship. These educational attainments have a clear impact on employment, training and further education opportunities.

This study will compare the academic performance of children with chronic diseases in relation to children without chronic diseases. Logistic and ordinal logistic regression analyses will be conducted separately for each disease. Statistical differences between the groups (those with and without the disease) will be evaluated after adjustment for potential confounders such as socioeconomic status, type of school and gender. Trends by calendar period will also be examined. Multilevel modelling will be used to take account of intraschool correlation in exam performance. Furthermore, pupil attendance data will be used to confirm the previouslyreported findings that children with chronic diseases have poorer attendance than their peers without chronic diseases. This may be an important potential mediator of poor performance. Other potentially relevant covariates that will be considered in the analysis will be a deprivation score derived from the postcode of residence and whether or not children were in receipt of free school meals.

16/07/2016

TRE