Pediatric Rehabilitation School Reintegration Study in New Jersey

A mixed-methods investigation explores community integration and school return for children with special health care needs after pediatric rehabilitation. The research uses focus groups with parents, former patients, and clinicians to identify barriers, supports, and impacts on educational outcomes. The study aims to provide descriptive information on long-term academic integration for this population.

Use Cases

• Analyze qualitative themes from focus group transcripts to identify common barriers and supports for school reintegration.
• Correlate patient characteristics from hospital records with academic outcomes from secondary analysis of school records.
• Examine the impact of pediatric rehabilitation services on educational goal attainment for children with special health care needs.
• Investigate the lived experiences of parents and clinicians navigating the transition from hospital to school environment.

Strengths

• Mixed-methods design combines qualitative focus group data with analysis of objective academic records.
• Focuses on a specific and understudied population: children with special health care needs returning to school after rehabilitation.
• Research addresses a gap identified by the lack of recent studies and in-depth descriptive information in pediatric rehabilitation.

Limitations

• Sample size is not specified and may be limited, as noted by the input describing prior research limitations.
• Geographic scope is restricted to New Jersey, which may limit generalizability to other regions.
• Relies on self-reported experiences from focus groups, which may introduce recall or social desirability bias.

Provenance

Source

Botticello, Amanda L., via ICPSR Harvested Dataverse.

Collection Method

Mixed methods using focus groups with parents, former patients, and clinicians, and secondary analysis of hospital and academic records.

Time Range

Study version is 2021; specific temporal coverage of data collection is not provided.

Freshness

Data pertains to a 2021 version, with metadata last updated in 2026.

Geography

New Jersey, United States.