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Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children

Most European countries have systematic health assessments of refugees with a main focus on infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to describe the broader health care needs identified in newly settled refugee children in a school health setting. The study population consisted of all 609 rece...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hjern, Anders, Kling, Stefan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6862330/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31683963
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214255
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author Hjern, Anders
Kling, Stefan
author_facet Hjern, Anders
Kling, Stefan
author_sort Hjern, Anders
collection PubMed
description Most European countries have systematic health assessments of refugees with a main focus on infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to describe the broader health care needs identified in newly settled refugee children in a school health setting. The study population consisted of all 609 recently settled Non-European refugee and asylum-seeking children in the age range 6–15 years who were enrolled in the schools of Malmö, Sweden during the autumn semester of 2015, of which 265 had arrived in Sweden unaccompanied. The data were collected in a structured routine intake interview by an experienced school nurse. Almost half of the children had obvious untreated caries. For the unaccompanied children, prominent mental health needs were present in almost one in three. Previously unidentified vision and/or hearing problems were identified in one in ten and around 5% had a daily medication, and 4.5% of the unaccompanied children and 1.2% of the accompanied children were judged to be in need of immediate care and were referred accordingly. Newly settled refugee children in northern Europe have considerable health care needs apart from communicable diseases. School health services have a unique platform to identify and initiate this care.
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spelling pubmed-68623302019-12-05 Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children Hjern, Anders Kling, Stefan Int J Environ Res Public Health Communication Most European countries have systematic health assessments of refugees with a main focus on infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to describe the broader health care needs identified in newly settled refugee children in a school health setting. The study population consisted of all 609 recently settled Non-European refugee and asylum-seeking children in the age range 6–15 years who were enrolled in the schools of Malmö, Sweden during the autumn semester of 2015, of which 265 had arrived in Sweden unaccompanied. The data were collected in a structured routine intake interview by an experienced school nurse. Almost half of the children had obvious untreated caries. For the unaccompanied children, prominent mental health needs were present in almost one in three. Previously unidentified vision and/or hearing problems were identified in one in ten and around 5% had a daily medication, and 4.5% of the unaccompanied children and 1.2% of the accompanied children were judged to be in need of immediate care and were referred accordingly. Newly settled refugee children in northern Europe have considerable health care needs apart from communicable diseases. School health services have a unique platform to identify and initiate this care. MDPI 2019-11-01 2019-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6862330/ /pubmed/31683963 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214255 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Hjern, Anders
Kling, Stefan
Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children
title Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children
title_full Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children
title_fullStr Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children
title_full_unstemmed Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children
title_short Health Care Needs in School-Age Refugee Children
title_sort health care needs in school-age refugee children
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6862330/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31683963
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214255
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