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Published on: April 22, 2015
Medical homes for children with autism: a physician survey
Allison Golnik1, Marjorie Ireland, Iris Wagman Borowsky
1University of Minnesota, Department of Pediatrics, Division of General Pediatrics, 717 Delaware St SE, 3rd Floor (West), Room 370E, Minneapolis, MN 55414, USA. allison.golnik@gmail.com
Insights
Primary care physicians feel less competent caring for children with autism and desire more education. Improving care requires addressing barriers like care coordination and physician training for better health outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Healthcare
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Management
- Physician Education
Background:
- High-quality primary care is crucial for children with autism's health and quality of life.
- Physicians' perspectives are key to understanding and improving care delivery for this population.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate primary care physicians' views on providing care to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Main Methods:
- National mail and e-mail surveys distributed to pediatricians and family physicians.
- Data collected from April 2007 to October 2007.
- Response rate of 19% achieved.
Main Results:
- Physicians reported lower self-perceived competency and a greater need for education for children with autism compared to other conditions.
- Identified barriers include poor care coordination, reimbursement issues, and lack of physician education.
- Factors predicting higher competency included more autism patient visits and prior autism training.
Conclusions:
- Primary care physicians express a need for enhanced competency and education in managing autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
- Addressing physician-reported barriers is essential for improving primary care.
- Development of targeted physician education and practice parameters is recommended.
Background:
Primary care physicians can enhance the health and quality of life of children with autism by providing high-quality and comprehensive primary care.
Objective:
To explore physicians' perspectives on primary care for children with autism.
Methods:
National mail and e-mail surveys were sent to a random sample of 2325 general pediatricians and 775 family physicians from April 2007 to October 2007.
Results:
The response rate was 19%. Physicians reported significantly lower overall self-perceived competency, a greater need for primary care improvement, and a greater desire for education for children with autism compared with both children with other neurodevelopmental conditions and those with chronic/complex medical conditions. The following barriers to providing primary care were endorsed as greater for children with autism: lack of care coordination, reimbursement and physician education, family skeptical of traditional medicine and vaccines, and patients using complementary alternative medicine. Adjusting for key demographic variables, predictors of both higher perceived autism competency and encouraging an empirically supported therapy, applied behavior analysis, included having a greater number of autism patient visits, having a friend or relative with autism, and previous training about autism.
Conclusions:
Primary care physicians report a lack of self-perceived competency, a desire for education, and a need for improvement in primary care for children with autism. Physician education is needed to improve primary care for children with autism. Practice parameters and models of care should address physician-reported barriers to care.
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