Quality of Life and Societal Cost in Autistic Children: An Exploratory Comparative Study Pre- and Post-Diagnosis.
Previous studies showed an impact of autism on the child's quality of life and societal costs, although little is known about changes from pre- to post-diagnosis. Therefore, our study explored the utilization of health-related services and associated costs in a group of 36 clinically referred Dutch...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders Vol. 56; no. 8; pp. 3129 - 3142 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Aug2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=195542268&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 195542268 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 01623257 AUT jtl: Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders issn: 01623257 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Aug2026 vid: 56 iid: 8 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature place: New York, New York artinfo: ui: 195542268 183535317 195542268 195542268 10.1007/s10803-025-06760-9 195542268 ppf: 3129 ppct: 13 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Quality of Life and Societal Cost in Autistic Children: An Exploratory Comparative Study Pre- and Post-Diagnosis. aug: au: ten Hoopen, Leontine W. de Nijs, Pieter F. A. Greaves-Lord, Kirstin Hillegers, Manon H. J. Brouwer, Werner B. F. Roijen, Leona Hakkaart-van affil: https://ror.org/047afsm11 Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus MC, Sophia Children's Hospital, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands sug: subj: Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis Quality of Life Evaluation Health Care Costs Evaluation Economic Aspects of Illness Evaluation Health Resource Utilization Economics Human Male Female Child, Preschool Child Exploratory Research Educational Status Absenteeism Leisure Activities Prospective Studies Repeated Measures Clinical Assessment Tools Checklists Questionnaires Scales Descriptive Statistics Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test McNemar's Test Multiple Regression Funding Source Child, Preschool: 2-5 years Child: 6-12 years Male Female ab: Previous studies showed an impact of autism on the child's quality of life and societal costs, although little is known about changes from pre- to post-diagnosis. Therefore, our study explored the utilization of health-related services and associated costs in a group of 36 clinically referred Dutch children with autism (aged 2–10 years), pre- and post-diagnosis. Taking a broad societal perspective, we included the child's quality of life, educational needs, and absenteeism in school and leisure activities. Furthermore, we assessed the service utilization in various categories, such as healthcare, youth care, and school guidance. The caregivers, mainly the parents, provided the information. Special needs daycare was the overall major cost driver pre- and post-diagnosis. We found a non-significant decrease in total annual costs (from €6513 to €5060). Post-diagnosis, healthcare costs were halved, changing towards less somatic and more mental healthcare. No shift to adjacent cost categories was seen. At the same time, the child's quality of life improved not significantly from 0.58 to 0.66 (EQ-5D-3L), with significantly fewer everyday activity problems. In addition, we observed a trend of less school absenteeism after the diagnosis. Regression analysis identified pre-diagnostic costs as the sole independent factor influencing post-diagnostic costs, explaining 23% of the variance. Our findings suggest the importance of timely clarification of autism as a foundation for informed intervention and treatment planning. This could potentially result in improved quality of life, appropriate service allocation, and reduced societal costs. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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