Medical Care Burden of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

This paper aims to examine health care utilization and expenditure in the provision of medical care to understand the medical care burden of children with autism spectrum disorders based on recent literature reviews. This article reviews the recent literature in Medline, PubMed, and Google by using key terms that are relevant to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and health care (medical care) utilization, medical care costs, and expenditures. I also hand-searched the reference lists of all of the included articles and recent narrative and systematic reviews related to medical care utilization and the costs of ASD to identify potentially relevant articles. The literature on medical care utilization and expenditures related to ASD highlights the fact that the disorder imposes high medical care burdens on families and on society. It is necessary to initiate appropriate, comprehensive, and accessible medical care services for individuals with ASD, particularly for those with comorbid conditions. Future studies should examine the impact of such improvements in the management of children with ASD on medical care utilization and costs.