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Can We Identify Parents Who Do Not Verbally Share Concerns for Their Children's Development?
Matthew Eremita1, Eileen Semancik, Trudy Lerer
1*University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT; †Department of Research, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Hartford, CT; ‡Department of Pediatrics, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT; §Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Hartford, CT.
Insights
Parents with less than a high school education are more likely to not voice developmental concerns to healthcare providers, despite reporting them on questionnaires. Written questionnaires may improve early detection for these children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric healthcare
- Developmental pediatrics
- Health communication
Background:
- Parental reporting of developmental concerns is crucial for early detection of developmental delays.
- However, some parents do not voice concerns during clinical encounters despite reporting them on questionnaires.
- Understanding factors influencing this communication gap is essential for improving child development surveillance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify characteristics of parents who do not voice developmental concerns to healthcare providers, even when concerns are noted on parent-completed questionnaires.
- To explore the relationship between sociodemographic variables and parents' willingness to share developmental concerns verbally.
Main Methods:
- A review of 376 medical records of children from a 9-month well-child visit was conducted.
- Sociodemographic variables including parental education, language, and family structure were analyzed.
- Logistic regression evaluated the association between these variables and parents voicing concerns after reporting them on the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) questionnaire.
Main Results:
- Parents with less than a high school education were significantly more likely to not verbally share developmental concerns (3.238 times more likely, p = .035).
- Parental education level was the only sociodemographic variable approaching statistical significance (p = .056).
- While 63% of parents with less than a high school education did not voice concerns, only 35% of parents with at least a high school education did not.
Conclusions:
- Low educational attainment may be a barrier for parents in verbally sharing developmental concerns with healthcare providers.
- Healthcare providers should be aware of this potential disparity in communication.
- Utilizing written screening tools like the PEDS questionnaire may enhance the early detection of developmental delays in children whose parents have lower educational attainment.
Objective:
We aimed to identify characteristics of parents who do not voice developmental concerns when prompted by their children's nurse and/or primary care provider (PCP), despite reporting concerns on parent-completed questionnaires.
Methods:
We reviewed 376 medical records of children seen for a 9-month well-child visit in an urban pediatric clinic between September 2011 and December 2012 for sociodemographic variables hypothesized to affect parents' sharing of developmental concerns: the child's birth order and gender; parents' education level, employment, relationship status, and primary language; and family size and racial/ethnic background. The target population was parents who reported concerns on the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS), a routinely administered, parent-completed screening questionnaire. We subdivided parents who reported concerns on the PEDS (N = 86) based on whether they voiced developmental concerns when prompted by their children's nurse and/or PCP. Two-sided Fisher's exact tests and logistic regression evaluated the relationship between sociodemographic variables and parents' voicing of developmental concerns.
Results:
Only parent education approached significance, as parents with less than a high school education (
Conclusion:
Parents with low educational attainment may be more likely to not verbally share their developmental concerns. For children of such parents, early detection of developmental delay may be strengthened by use of written questionnaires.
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