Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Manea, Silvia
• Dalla Pozza, Laura Visonà
• Mazzucato, Monica
• Gelasio, Oliviana
• Facchin, Paola

Titel

Diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorders: when and how? An area-based study about health care providers

Ist Teil von

• World journal of pediatrics : WJP, 2015-02, Vol.11 (1), p.48-53

Ort / Verlag

Heidelberg: Childrens Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Background Pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs) can be very difficult to diagnose in children and to communicate such a diagnosis to their parents. Families of children with PDD learn of their child’s diagnosis long after the first symptoms are noted in the child’s behavior. Methods An area-based survey was conducted to assess all social and health care providers taking care of patients with PDDs in the Veneto Region (North-East Italy). Results Only 28% of health care providers arrived at a definite diagnosis when the child was in his/her first year of age, 51% when the child was 2–3 years old and 21% from age of 4 years and up. On average, the latency between the time of the diagnosis and its communication to the family was 6.9 months. However, a number of families did not ever have a diagnosis communicated to them. Sometimes, 68% of the providers did not communicate a PDDs diagnosis to patient’s families, and 4% of them quite commonly. Conclusion The well-known delay in making a diagnosis of PDDs has two distinct components: one relating to the difficulty of confirming a diagnosis of PDDs, the other, hitherto unrecognized, relating to the family being notified.