[Midwives and Nurses in Early Childhood Intervention: The Benefit of Additional Qualification]. / Gesundheitsfachkräfte in den Frühen Hilfen: Wie nützlich ist die Zusatzqualifikation? Eine quantitative Studie.

Midwives and Nurses in Early Childhood Intervention: The Benefit of Additional Qualification Abstract. BACKGROUND: Early childhood interventions are locally and regionally organized support services for families from pregnancy until the end of the third year of life. The interventions promote diverse measures to enhance parental skills in order to improve developmental and living circumstances. Midwives and nurses with additional qualification support burdened families in early childhood intervention. METHOD: Within a retrospective survey (standardized interviews, CAPI) mothers' (N = 298) perspective of the benefit of the home visiting support is assessed. Data from two groups were compared: (1) mothers in the care of a midwife or nurse with additional qualification (GruppeGFK + Quali) and (2) mothers cared for by a midwife or nurse without additional qualification (GruppeGFK). RESULTS: (1) Families with weighted levels of psychosocial burdens reported an enhanced need for help. (2) Midwives and nurses with additional qualification support more frequently families with high levels of psychosocial burdens. (3) Mothers with care of midwives and nurses with additional qualification reported this support as more useful in relation to every day demands than mothers with regular care after birth (questionnaire for evaluation of the received support: GruppeGFK + Quali: mean = 2.57; GruppeGFK : mean = 1.97; t (121) = 2.799, p = .003). CONCLUSION: The study complements results of national and international studies showing that families with high levels of psychosocial burdens accept home visiting support. Furthermore, this support seems to be useful. An increase of the offer and the additional qualification is recommended for improving the developmental and living conditions of families with psychosocial burdens.

[Family midwives and nurses in early childhood intervention : Have they been successful?]. / Gesundheitsfachkräfte in den Frühen Hilfen : Hat sich ihr Einsatz bewährt?

BACKGROUND: The federal initiative promotes support offered by family midwives and nurses in early childhood intervention. So far, the initiative has contributed to the fact that many municipalities in Germany provide support to burdened families with young children in order to help them cope with everyday life and child-raising issues. This investigation aims to provide scientific insight into the question of if (and how) families benefit from the support of family midwives and nurses. METHODS: To answer this question, the National Centre on Early Prevention conducted an online survey. In a two-wave longitudinal study, 190 family midwives and nurses took part in the survey and reported data concerning resources, stresses, strains and improvements of 937 families. RESULTS: Families with relatively higher resources and lower stresses benefit from the support of family midwives and nurses, whereas families under more extreme stresses and strains do not seem to benefit to the same extent. Nevertheless, for a majority of the latter families, midwife and nurse services were still beneficial, as the professionals were able to arrange more adequate, i. e. more intense, support offered by the child and youth welfare system in Germany. DISCUSSION: Families in stressful living circumstances seem to benefit from family midwife and nurse services. However, further research proposals (i. e. CTs) are requested, whereby the appropriate outcome variables to measure the effect should be selected.