Früherkennungsuntersuchungen für Kinder: Ergebnisse einer AOK-Sekundärdatenanalyse

Screening tests for infants and children, the so-called Uexaminations, are not only a means of disease prevention but they also serve to monitor the child’s development from birth to school age. In order to reach as many children as possible, some federal states have introduced a reporting system and send out invitations and reminders to parents. The AOK’s accounting data of the years 2008 to 2016 show an increasing rate of utilisation of U-examinations over the years, especially for children in their first year of life (U3 to U6) with more than 95%. However, the rates of U-examinations for children aged 24 months and older (U7 to U9) are consistently lower by 10 percentage points. Furthermore, in the cohort born in 2010, a larger proportion of children have attended every single U-examination from U3 to U9 (72.5%) compared to the cohort born in 2008 (68.8%), so an increase can be assumed here. On the other hand, 3.3 percent of the children born in 2010 missed three or more U-examinations. Therefore, in spite of the increase in utilisation observed, efforts to facilitate the participation in U-examinations for all children should be continued. Abstract