Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Healthcare Switzerland

Publication Date

8-1-2025

Abstract

Background: Chronic illness affects children’s health and disrupts the spatial and temporal aspects of schooling by complicating attendance, interrupting learning routines, and exposing institutional rigidity. While many educational systems treat chronicity as an exception to be managed, this review reconceptualizes it as a pedagogical and symbolic challenge to normative assumptions about inclusion, care, and participation. Objective: To systematically examine how school-based behavioral and psychosocial interventions support children and adolescents with chronic health conditions (CHCs) in inclusive educational settings and to analyze what these interventions reveal about institutional practices of care and recognition. Methods: Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we conducted a systematic search across five databases, PubMed, ERIC, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science, for studies published between January 2010 and April 2025. Of 420 records screened, 28 studies met inclusion criteria. Eligible studies reported on school-based interventions for students aged 5–18 with chronic conditions. Methodological quality was appraised using the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 tool (for RCTs) and the Joanna Briggs Institute checklist (for quasi-experimental designs). Findings were synthesized narratively and thematically. Results: The included studies addressed asthma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), diabetes, epilepsy, autism, cancer, and food allergies. Interventions ranged from nurse-led management and teacher training to peer education and executive function coaching. Most reported improvements in symptom control, school attendance, academic performance, and psychosocial wellbeing. Several studies also demonstrated how interventions reshaped institutional routines and distributed responsibility for care, challenging rampant assumptions about autonomy, ability, and normativity. Conclusions: School-based interventions for chronic illness operate as health strategies and as symbolic and structural enactments of inclusion. When designed relationally, they modulate schools into responsive institutions where care is integrated in everyday pedagogical and organizational practices. Future research prioritizes longitudinal studies, underrepresented contexts, and the active participation of youth in shaping interventions.

ISSN

2227-9032

Publisher

MDPI AG

Volume

13

Issue

16

Disciplines

Education

Keywords

behavioral intervention, chronic illness, disability studies, inclusive education, pedagogy of care, symbolic inclusion, systematic review

Scopus ID

105014447019

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series

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