Study designs of evaluations included in the review
There were 42 studies in total. These consisted of before-and-after studies, i.e. within-participant designs, and controlled studies, which were classed as between-group designs. No other details were provided.
Specific interventions included in the review
Problem areas targeted for intervention were: disease management, emotional or behavioural concomitants of disease, health promotion, and prevention of illness or injury.
Participants included in the review
For studies to be included they had to use a sample of children or adolescents, aged at most 18 years, with either a chronic medical illness or with various chronic medical conditions that had been pooled for analysis. The average age of participants in the included studies was 10.3 years, and 50% were male. Overall, the most common medical conditions were cancer (26%) and headache (24%). Other conditions were: diabetes (17%), asthma (14%), cystic fibrosis (7%), rheumatoid arthritis (5%), end-stage renal disease (5%) and congenital heart disease (2%).
Outcomes assessed in the review
Five categories of outcome measure were assessed: psychophysiological measures, medical services, procedure-related distress, disease-related knowledge and psychosocial problems.
How were decisions on the relevance of primary studies made?
The authors do not state how the papers were selected for the review, or how many of the authors performed the selection.