European Personal Child Health Record Booklets (PCHRB) under the microscope.
ECPCP completed between 2016- 2017 the analysis of two questionnaires on Personal Child Health Record Booklets in selected ECPCP countries. Prevention is the No.1 specialty of primary care paediatricians. The booklet, kept by parents and brought to well-child visits, is used to document and promote longitudinal care.
The first questionnaire analyses the characteristics of well child health visits and the PCHRB in 18 European countries. The responses reveal the diversity of the documentation of well-child visits. There are many different types of booklets and various extents of coverage.
The well-child visits always include several measures, interventions and anticipatory guidance. Growth tracking, screenings, physical exams, hearing and vision tests and vaccinations are known to be important evidence-based measures and interventions in pediatrics. Go the results of the 1st questionnaire.
Office based electronic software is increasingly used every day. Paediatric teams feed electronic databases with data from well child visits. Some countries have abandoned written information and paper- based records. Is this the future? It is unclear whether this general trend will continue. What do our colleagues think?
In order to describe the trends and analyze the opinions we decided to design a second questionnaire. We wanted to know what the paediatric team thinks about the PCHR- booklet. Do they find it useful for documentation and communication with parents? Do parents like the PCHRB? See results of the 2nd questionnaire in which 356 primary care paediatricians from 15 countries expressed the reasons why they would not like to abandon the Personal Child Health Record Booklets.
The bias referring to the number of respondents from countries with most primary care paediatricians (Spain, Germany, Italy, France and Israel) should be taken into account in this qualitative survey.
Andreas Werner, Gottfried Huss, Christine Magendie, Mario Schuhmacher, Working group prevention/ vaccination ECPCP
We would like to thank all colleagues for their contributions.
The document is online now in order to stimulate the discussion in our next meeting.