Prevalence of mental health problems among children placed in out-of-home care in Denmark

ABSTRACT This paper concerns the prevalence of mental health problems among children in family foster and residential care within a Danish context. All children, born in Denmark in 1995, who are or formerly have been placed in out‐of‐home care (n= 1072), are compared with a group of vulnerable children of the same age, subjected to child protection interventions but living at home (n= 1457, referred to as the ‘in home care children’), and to all contemporaries who are not child protection clients (n= 71 321, referred to as the ‘non‐welfare children’). Prevalence data are established on the basis of national administrative register data, including data on psychiatric diagnoses of the children, and on survey data scoring children in out‐of‐home care, in home care children, and non‐welfare children by means of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results show that 20% of children in out‐of‐home care have at least one psychiatric diagnosis compared to 3% of the non‐welfare children. Almost half of the children in care (48%) are, furthermore, scored within the abnormal range of SDQ, compared to 5% of the non‐welfare children.