Actually, it depends on whether the option "Use flat catalog category" is enabled.
Therefore, the best method for checking a category has a child category or not:
if (Mage::helper('catalog/category_flat')->isEnabled()) {
$childrenCount = $category->getResource()->getChildrenAmount($category);
} else {
$childrenCount = $category->getResource()->getChildrenCount();
}
with category $ I assume that you are already like:
$category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(id);
source
share