Comparability

Comparability - geographical

The statistics cannot be compared directly internationally.

Comparability over time

These statistics have been compiled since 1977, but due to legislative changes in 1985 and 1993, the statistics are not strictly comparable over the years. Since January 1993 changes in legislation resulted in that certain measures, previously considered as placement in out-of-home care, were transferred to the preventive measures area. At the same time, a number of new preventive measures were introduced.

Many simultaneous legislation changes in 2006, resulted in a significant data breach and contributed to reduction in quality of reporting. 2006-data is not comparable on several areas with previous years and furthermore, the data is not unconditionally comparable to the following year, 2007, due to the same reasons. Since January 2020, data on services, given on the basis of the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Act (LBU), are collected. LBU Articles and paragraphs have no influence on the other articles, presented in the statistics. Since the 1th of July 2020, the statistics contain data on several paragraphs of Article 11 of the Danish Act on Social Services. The statistics have had a significant increase in size due to the addition of Article 11 data.

Coherence - cross domain

The statistics are linked to the statistics on children and young persons placed in out-of-home care, due to the fact that a municipality is obliged to provide a child, young person or the family preventive measures, before a ruling is made to place a person in out-of-home care. Furthermore, some preventive measures can only be granted in connection to a placement in out-of-home care or after. Micro-data of the Statistics contain social security numbers, which makes it possible to link the data with other statistics.

Coherence - internal

Data reported from different sources usually follow the same reporting forms. If changes in the reporting forms are made, differences can occur, as the IT suppliers cannot implement the changes simultaneously. During these periods of transition, the reply categories from the old reporting forms will be "mapped" to new categories.