Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

2010

Abstract

Parental behavior effects child psychosocial development. Parents who once had the benefits and supports of extended families and communities are now more isolated in their parenting. The isolation of families increases stress. New parents receive little education and support to deal with stress and the added stress of a newborn or their very young children. This poster presentation will describe a quality improvement project based in pediatric practices. The study was designed to test methods to increase anticipatory guidance, screening, and referral for psychosocial development. The project included physician use of chart data to identify outcomes of their enhanced care. The study included quantitative and qualitative methods (i.e. in depth interviews surveys, etc.) to determine physician adoption of prevention bundles. 15 practices throughout the U.S. adopted new practices to screen and refer for maternal depression, infant crying, toileting and discipline. Physicians do not typically use the chart data to inform their practices but will if prompted as shown in this study. Outcome measures such as developmental assessments can be used by physicians to determine the impact and quality of care of interventions on child health. This work demonstrates that physicians can play an important role with the use of enhanced tools to treat the “new morbidities” that arise in the first three years of life.

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