Sources of Emotional Support Among Family Caregivers of Children With More Complex Special Health Care Needs

OBJECTIVE: Identify sources of emotional support among caregivers of children with more complex special health care needs (SHCN) and examine their relationships with caregiver emotional well-being. METHODS: Secondary analysis of the 2016 to 2022 National Survey of Children's Health. We categorized children by degree of medical complexity: no SHCN, less complex SHCN, and more complex SHCN. Our primary outcome was caregivers' self-reported sources of emotional support. Chi-squared testing compared caregivers' sources of emotional support across child medical complexity levels. Adjusted logistic regression analyses then examined the associations between emotional support sources and our secondary outcomes (caregiver-reported mental health, parental coping, and parental aggravation) among caregivers of children with more complex SHCN. RESULTS: Compared to caregivers of children with no and less complex SHCN, caregivers of more complex SHCN (weighted n = 10.1 million) were significantly less likely (P