UNCHARTED TERRITORY: INVESTIGATING PARENTAL AND PROFESSIONAL UNDERSTANDING OF GROWTH CHARTS

¹M. Sachs, ²C. Wright, ¹L. Sharp, ³E. Birks, ⁴H. Bedford, ⁵R. Moy. ¹Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, London, UK, ²University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, ³Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK, ⁴UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK, ⁵Institute of Child Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Background and aims: The design of new UK growth charts to incorporate WHO data utilised parent and professional focus groups throughout. This paper will discuss what these groups revealed about use and understanding of growth charts.

Methods: Initial work with parents investigated the impact of the current UK90 design and parent-held child health record text on parental understanding. Subsequent parent groups tested draft text. Professional focus groups, mainly with members of health visiting teams, completed permutated exercises on current charts and new designs using case scenarios. These tested the new separation of preterm and infancy weight charts as well as plotting accuracy. These groups yielded quantitative data on plotting and interpretation accuracy and rich qualitative data from group discussions.

Findings: Parents believed that they understood growth charts and that their child should grow along “that big bold line” (the 50th centile). They valued health visitor contact, but felt that weighing was required as a means of access. Professionals were reluctant to investigate neonatal weight loss and to calculate actual percentage weight …