A controlled trial of parent initiated and conventional preschool health surveillance using personal child health records
John Dearlovea, Su Illingworthb
a Department of
Paediatrics, Yeovil District Hospital, Higher Kingston, Yeovil,
Somerset BA21 4AT, UK, b Community Health, East Somerset NHS Trust,
Summerlands Hospital, Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset, BA20 2BX, UK
Correspondence to: Dr Dearlove.
Accepted 18 December 1998
OBJECTIVES
A
comparison of parent initiated preschool surveillance, using personal
child health records, with the then current system of child health
surveillance using child health records.
DESIGNProspective,
controlled trial with randomisation of five general practices into two groups.
SETTINGFive general
practices, a well baby clinic, and an orthoptic clinic at Yeovil
District Hospital.
SUBJECTS538 babies
born between 1 April 1992 and 1 November 1994, from within the five
general practices.
MAIN OUTCOME
MEASURESThe number of screenable abnormalities in
the two groups that were missed in the first 3 years of a baby's life.
RESULTS163 babies
from the parent initiated preschool surveillance group and 107 from the
conventional group completed the study. Although all the mothers from
the parent initiated preschool surveillance group understood the
concept of parent initiated surveillance, 117 stated their health
visitor had made their appointments. Only 45 mothers made their own
appointments. The abnormality rates were: 12 of 163 and eight of 107 at
1 year and nine of 163 and six of 107 at 3 years. No medically
important conditions were missed. Most mothers did not want to make
their own appointments because it was inconvenient. The system was
unpopular with health visitors.
CONCLUSIONParent
initiated preschool surveillance is as safe as the current system.
Implementing the idea involved a small change in work practice and a
large change conceptually for some of the primary health care team. It
was not adopted in east Somerset.
Keywords: controlled trial; personal child health records; surveillance; parent initiated preschool surveillance
© 1999 by Archives of Disease in Childhood
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
BHROLCHAIN, C. N.
(2000). Parent initiated and conventional preschool health surveillance. Arch. Dis. Child.
82: 336-336
[Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in ADC Online
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
