Parental engagement in preventive youth health care: Effect evaluation

Objective It is common for parents to have concerns or questions regarding their child. However, parental concerns are not always recognised by the youth healthcare professional. At the same time, not all parents agree with concerns identified by the professional. Identifying and agreeing on concerns is an essential step in the assessment of care needs within child health care. This article describes the effects of an innovative 'GIZ' methodology for joint assessment of care-needs developed to support the professional in engaging parents in assessing strengths, developmental concerns and care needs of the child and family. The current study compares parent-professional agreement on concerns and follow-up actions, and parents' satisfaction with the consultation with and without the GIZ. Methods During this non-randomised controlled trial, 733 parents of children aged 0–12 and their professional completed a questionnaire after the consultation. In 526 assessments, the GIZ was used, and in 207 care as usual. Outcome measures were: concerns discussed, parent-professional agreement on strengths, concerns and follow-up actions and parents' satisfaction with the consultation. Multilevel analyses were used to answer the research questions. Results In the GIZ group, parental concerns (specifically regarding parenting and the child's environment) were discussed significantly more often. The use of the GIZ was associated with increased parent-professional agreement on concerns regarding the child's development and increased agreement on the given advice. Parents' satisfaction was significantly higher. Conclusion Using the GIZ within preventive child health care has positive effects on discussing parenting and environmental circumstances, on the parent-professional agreement and parents' satisfaction.