Medical and Social Outcomes in the Management of Cardiac Diseases in Children

Children with cardiovascular diseases, especially congenital heart diseases are exposed to socioeconomic burdens ranging from poverty, economic difficulties, and emotional breakdown to parental schism. There are various ways by which cardiac diseases affect children. These include the effect of the disease on the child, the family and the nation as a whole. Management of cardiovascular diseases in children comprises diagnosis, investigations, medical and surgical rehabilitation/ergonomics and follow-up. All these steps in management have both medical and social implications on the child. The effects of cardiovascular diseases are not limited to health, but can seep into social life, as well. Affected individuals tend to forgo a lot of things, including restrictions in their life, depression and even family structure disintegration, decrease life expectancy and family disharmony in some cultures. The socio-economic burden of pediatric cardiovascular diseases is quite huge both for the individual, household and society. The impact includes loss in financial resources, productivity, increased disability-adjusted life years, decreased quality of life, catastrophic expenditure and premature death. These burdens are more in the low and middle-income countries. This chapter aims at eliciting the various social and economic burdens that children with heart diseases encounter in the course of their illness.