PM2007: Parents Are Receptive to a Novel Parenting Assessment Tool Integrated into Pediatric Primary Care

Background: Parenting is a social determinant of health. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends addressing discipline as a part of primary care, but this is not routinely done. A standardized parenting assessment tool could fill this gap in services by facilitating conversations, but it is not known if parents would be receptive to answering questions about their discipline practices. The objectives were to assess parents’ perspectives on the acceptability and usefulness of a parenting assessment tool integrated into pediatric primary care and to examine if perspectives differ by sociodemographic factors

Methods: The Quick Parenting Assessment (QPA) is a validated, 13 item survey that assesses for healthy and unhealthy discipline practices used in the past month. In a clinic serving low-income families, the QPA was integrated into well child visits for four different ages. Parents completed the QPA with other intake forms and providers were encouraged to review it with parents during the visit. After the visit, 417 parents were invited to complete a survey about their experience and 374 (90%) agreed to participate. For this cross-sectional study, we focus on 157 parents who reported that the QPA was reviewed by their provider. Key measures include parents’ concerns about completing the QPA and parents’ opinion of the QPA’s effect on communication, helping the provider give the right level of parenting support, and value. We calculated frequencies of parents’ responses to the key measures and used Pearson’s chi-squared test to assess for associations with sociodemographic factors.

Results: Parents were from diverse backgrounds. 42% were Black, 17% were White, and 32% were Hispanic. 26% spoke a language other than English. 24% of parents had elevated QPA scores and of those 10% were high risk. Most parents (94%) indicated they felt comfortable completing the QPA truthfully. Most parents reported that the QPA helped facilitate communication (55%), helped the provider give the right level of parenting support (90%), and added value (81%). No significant differences were found for race/ethnicity, language, or parent education. An elevated QPA score was associated with a greater likelihood of reporting the QPA helped communication (p=.027). Having only one child was associated with a greater likelihood of reporting the QPA added value (p=.009).

Conclusion: A diverse sample of parents were receptive to a parenting assessment tool, reporting that it facilitated communication, helped the provider give the right level of parenting support, and added value to the visit. The findings support the use of a parenting assessment tool in pediatric primary care and have implications for mitigating adverse childhood experiences.