TY - JOUR T1 - Attendance of routine childcare visits in primary care for children of mothers with depression: a nationwide population-based cohort study JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - e97 LP - e104 DO - 10.3399/bjgp18X694565 VL - 68 IS - 667 AU - Bente Kjær Lyngsøe AU - Claus Høstrup Vestergaard AU - Dorte Rytter AU - Mogens Vestergaard AU - Trine Munk-Olsen AU - Bodil Hammer Bech Y1 - 2018/02/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/68/667/e97.abstract N2 - Background Depression is a common and potentially debilitating illness worldwide. Attendance to routine childcare appointments is a key point of interest in the effort to improve the health and care for families facing depression.Aim To evaluate the association between maternal depression and offspring non-attendance to the Danish childcare and vaccination programme (CCP) for children from 0–5 years of age. The CCP consists of seven separate visits and several vaccinations. To investigate if exposure to recent and previous depression may affect attendance differently.Design and setting Population-based cohort study using Danish nationwide registers.Method Participants were all live-born children (n = 853 315) in Denmark in the period from 1 January 2000 until 31 August 2013, and their mothers. The outcome of interest was non-attendance of each one of the seven scheduled childcare visits and two vaccination entities in the CCP. Exposure was maternal (both previous and recent) depression. All information was obtained from Danish national registries.Results The risk of not attending CCP was higher for children of mothers with depression. For children of mothers with previous depression, the relative risk (RR) was 1.01 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.98 to 1.03) at the 5-week childcare visit, and 1.12 (95% CI = 1.09 to 1.14) at the 5-year childcare visit. For children of mothers with recent depression, the RR was 1.07 (95% CI = 1.03 to 1.13) at the 5-week visit, and 1.15 (95% CI = 1.13 to 1.17) at the 5-year visit. Furthermore, the risk of missing at least four of the seven childcare visits was higher for children of females with maternal depression (RR = 1.16, 95% CI = 1.13 to 1.19).Conclusion Maternal depression seems to compromise CCP attendance. These findings suggest a need for careful clinical attention to these vulnerable families, even years after a diagnosis of depression. ER -