Research Digest: Psychological Needs of Children with Chronic Physical Conditions

Twenty-three percent of children and young people in England have a long-term health condition (Brooks et al., 2015). As this current Research Digest will show there is a wealth of evidence for the psychological impact chronic physical conditions1 have within childhood. For example, King et al. (2024) report that at least one quarter of young people with a long-term health condition in England also have a probable mental health condition, compared with around 16% in the general population (NHS Digital, 2021, cited in King et al., 2024) and Brady et al. (2021), using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children2, found ‘children with chronic health problems presented with a disproportionate rate of psychiatric illness at 10 years, and these chronic health problems continued to be associated with poor mental health outcomes at 13 years and 15 years’ (p. 885). Unfortunately, it is often the case, ‘that children with physical and mental health conditions are viewed as complex; the care of their physical health may be prioritised, inadvertently leading to neglect of their mental health needs’ (Bennet et al. 2015, p. 308). It is therefore evident that this is a cohort of children and young people who require careful attention when considering their mental health needs. This is especially so as it is well documented that co-morbid psychiatric symptoms can negatively impact on the adherence to medical protocols and management of the physical health condition (de Araujo Filho & Yacubian, 2013) thus exacerbating the impact of the long-term health condition on their lives.

In conducting background work for the current Research Digest, it was discovered that volume 16, issue 2, of the Journal of Child Psychotherapy (JCP), published in 1990, (the first ‘special issue’ in which a theme for the papers was set in advance) focused on ‘work with children with an illness or disability’. The journal covered a wide range of work in different settings (general paediatric