Nurse Documentation of Child Weight-Related Health Promotion at Age Four in Sweden

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Public Health
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Childhood overweight and obesity rates are rising globally, often persisting into adulthood.
• Child Health Services (CHS) play a vital role in delivering health-promotive interventions.
• Documentation of these interventions in child health records is essential for continuity of care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the documentation practices of Child Health Care (CHC) nurses regarding weight-related, lifestyle interventions.
• To assess documentation completeness in the Child Health Care Record (CHCR) at the four-year visit.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective record review of 485 Child Health Care Records (CHCRs).
• Utilized a standardized review template for data extraction.
• Employed chi-square tests and Spearman's rank-order correlations for data analysis.

Main Results:

• CHC nurses documented lifestyle interventions at a low frequency.
• Children identified as overweight or obese appeared to receive more interventions, though documentation remained limited.
• Differences in documentation were observed between electronic and paper-based health records.

Conclusions:

• Incomplete documentation hinders the ability to monitor and evaluate the quality of CHC nursing interventions.
• Further investigation is required to understand the underlying reasons for the underrepresentation of nursing work in child health records.
• Improving documentation practices is crucial for demonstrating the impact and quality of pediatric health services.