Developmental surveillance of infants and young children in pediatric primary care
Child; Humans; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Preschool; infant; Developmental Disabilities/diagnosis; Child Health Services/standards; Internet/utilization
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This article reviews the importance of appropriate developmental surveillance in early childhood, what is known about its effectiveness in current pediatric practice, and ways in which its delivery can be improved to optimize child outcomes. RECENT FINDINGS: Many infants and young children with developmental delays or risk factors for poor developmental outcomes are not identified by pediatric practitioners in a timely manner. When they are identified, they are often not referred to appropriate early intervention services or early childhood development programs. They are therefore denied the opportunity to benefit from programs documented to have long-lasting benefits for children. Structuring developmental screening around the use of validated parent questionnaires improves the rates at which children with developmental needs are appropriately identified. At the same time, lowering thresholds for referral improves the rates at which children with identified needs receive appropriate services. SUMMARY: Pediatric practitioners are uniquely positioned to improve children's developmental outcomes through early identification and referral of children with developmental delays or risk factors for poor developmental outcomes. Unfortunately, inappropriate screening practices, high thresholds for referral, misplaced concerns about causing parental anxiety, and unfamiliarity with local resources all diminish the effectiveness with which many practitioners conduct developmental surveillance. Recent studies show that small changes in screening and referral practices have the potential to greatly improve the effectiveness of developmental surveillance. This, in turn, has the potential to improve lifelong outcomes for children.
2003
King TM; Glascoe FP
Current Opinion In Pediatrics
2003
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
Journal Article
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1097/00008480-200312000-00014" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">10.1097/00008480-200312000-00014</a>
Palliative care on the net: an online survey of health care professionals
Female; Male; Adult; Questionnaires; Aged; Middle Aged; Computer Communication Networks; Practice; Attitudes; Health Knowledge; Human; Databases; Periodicals; Attitude of Health Personnel; Attitude to Computers; Factual/utilization; Health Personnel/psychology/statistics & numerical data; Information Services/utilization; Internet/utilization; Nurses/psychology/statistics & numerical data; Online Systems/utilization; Pharmacists/psychology/statistics & numerical data; Physicians/psychology/statistics & numerical data; Terminal Care/statistics & numerical data
A survey was conducted to explore Internet use by palliative care health professionals (HCP). The survey was placed on the World Wide Web with an underlying database, and palliative care HCP were invited to participate via a palliative-care-related website, listserv, and newsletter. A total of 417 evaluable responses were received over a four-month period. Of these, 36% indicated they were from physicians and 30% from nurses, a third of respondents were practicing palliative care full time. Although 63% of respondents were from North America, regions from all over the world were represented. Eighty-eight percent of respondents were searching the Internet for clinical information, 80% were using email, 69% were accessing online medical journals, and 59% were subscribers to a palliative-care-related listserv or newsgroup. This survey illustrates the global outreach of the Internet and draws attention to the growing interest in the use of the Internet for education, research, and clinical use. Further development of online resources should address the needs of users. Evaluation of these resources is called for.
2001
Pereira J; Bruera E; Quan H
Journal Of Palliative Care
2001
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
Journal Article