Comparing Health Status, Health Trajectories and Use of Health and Social Services between Children with and without Developmental Disabilities: A Population-based Longitudinal Study in Manitoba.

BACKGROUND: Little information exists on health of children with developmental disabilities (DDs) in the Canadian province of Manitoba. METHOD: The present authors linked 12 years of administrative data and compared health status, changes in health and access to health and social services between children with (n = 1877) and without (n = 5661) DDs living in the province, matched by age, sex and region of residence. RESULTS: Children with DDs were significantly more likely than children in the matched comparison group to die before the age of 17 and have a history of respiratory illness, diabetes and injury-related hospitalizations. Children with DD also had significantly higher average number of ambulatory physician visits and higher rate of continuity of care. CONCLUSIONS: Children with DDs had poorer health status than the matched comparison group. The health disparities experienced by children with DDs persisted over time. Further population-based longitudinal research is needed in this area.

"How can I still be me?": Strategies to maintain a sense of self in the context of a neurological condition.

The Living with a Neurological Condition (LINC) study was part of the National Population Health Study of Neurological Conditions conducted in Canada. This article describes empirical original qualitative data collected in the third and final phase of this study and examines how individuals living with a neurological condition maintain continuity of their sense of self, with a particular focus on their strategies. Fifteen interviews were analysed for this paper. Emerging strategies for maintaining sense of self include: (1) avoidance and denial, (2) cognitive reframing, (3) articulation of the self through imagined positive identity, (4) strategies that reconnect to identity in the past, (5) adjusting and altering goals, (6) spiritual activities, (7) humour, (8) comparison with others: identity as shaped through social constructs, and (9) creating communities: a reciprocal reflection of self.