Technical Report - Donegal Traveller's Project

All Ireland Traveller Health StudyTable 246: Rating of the child’s current health, in the AITHS, Lifeways and HBSC, by ageRatingofhealthROI(n=520)5-year-olds 9-year-old 14-year-oldsTravellersNI(n=61)Lifeways(n=177)ROI(n=386)TravellersNI(n=65)HBSC9-yearoldinSC 5-6(n=333)ROI(n=459)TravellersNI(n=55)HBSC12-14-yearoldsinSC 5-6(n=907)Excellent 45.4% 42.6% 28.8% 55.4% 46.2% 40.2% 52.9% 54.5% 34.4%Very 48.4%* 49.2%* 67.8%* 39.4%† 43.1%† 54.1%† 40.1%† 40.0%† 54.5%†goodand/orgoodFair or 6.2% 8.2% 3.4% 5.1% 10.8% 4.8% 7.0% 5.5% 11.1%poor*Composite of “Very Good” and “Good” answers†”Good” answer only, as there was no “Very Good” option in HBSCIn total, 22.9% of ROI Traveller children and 26.0% of NI children have ever had an accident that requiredhospital treatment. 26.5% of ROI and 23.8% of NI Traveller 9-year-old have ever had such an accident, incomparison with 30.9% of 9-year-old NLSC/GUI children in SC 5-6. 42.7% of HBSC children in all socialclasses reported an accident which ‘required treatment from a doctor or nurse’ in the last 12 months.Regarding specific injuries, 16.7% of ROI and 16.7% of NI 5-year-old Traveller children were reported tohave ever had a burn or a scald, in comparison with no reported burns or scalds in the last 12 monthsin 199 5-year-old Lifeways children whose mother holds a medical card. 2.2% of ROI and no NI 5-yearoldTraveller children were reported to have ever had an accidental poisoning, in comparison with0.5% (9/199) Lifeways 5-year-old children, whose mothers hold medical cards, who had an accidentalpoisoning in the last 12 months 2 .The 5-year-old AITHS children from ROI are more likely to have stayed overnight in hospital, with 9.5%of ROI and 3.3% of NI 5-year-olds having been an inpatient for one or more days in the previous 12months, in comparison with 2.3% of the Lifeways 5-year-olds whose mothers hold medical cards. Inthe last 12 months, 6.0% of ROI AITHS children and 10.6% NI AITHS children were reported to have notreceived medical care for a problem that needed attention, compared with 2.8% of NLSC/GUI 9-yearoldchildren in SC 5-6. In the NLSC/GUI, 9.1% of the parents of this 2.8% indicated that this was because1962It should be noted however that there are a number of limitations in these comparisons of accident incidence.Firstly, the items collected vary with regard to time scale. For the HBSC and Lifeways studies, data were collectedon accidents in the last 12 months, and in the AITHS and NLSC/GUI, data were collected on whether the childhad ever had an accident. Second, the AITHS and NLSC/GUI items related to hospital treatment, whereas theHBSC item related to doctor or nurse treatment. Third, as already stated, the methodologies vary somewhat betweenthe studies, in that AITHS, Lifeways and selected NLSC data were collected from parent or guardian report,whereas the HBSC was collected by child report.