Family socioeconomic position and changes in planned health care for children with chronic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

INTRODUCTION: In this study, we aimed at evaluating whether, during the COVID-19 pandemic, children affected by chronic diseases were impacted by the deferral of planned healthcare caused by the restriction measures. DESIGN: This study was conducted using data from the Italian NINFEA birth cohort, which include children born between 2005 and 2016. Women who completed the 4-year NINFEA follow-up questionnaire before November 2020 (N = 5,307) were invited to complete a questionnaire targeted at evaluating the impacts of the pandemic on their children's health. The questionnaire asked mothers to report whether their children had a chronic disease or condition that required one or more regular health checks by a doctor in 2019 (used as a reference period) and whether the children had problems getting routine health checks after March 2020. RESULTS: We obtained information on 3,721 children. Out of 353 children with a chronic disease that required at least one medical visit in 2019, 130 (36.8%) experienced problems during the pandemic. Lower family income was associated with a higher risk of experiencing health access problems. We observed that children living in families at lower income tertiles had more chance of experiencing healthcare access problems than children living in families at the highest income tertiles (prevalence rate ratio for a tertile decrease in family income: 1.22; 95% CIs: 1.02–1.49). CONCLUSION: Our study underlines that the COVID-19 pandemic may have caused healthcare access problems for children with prevalent chronic diseases, especially among those living in households with a low socioeconomic position.