Quality in child healthcare - The views of mothers and public health nurses

In child health promotion (CHP) programmes it is the public health nurse wh o is responsible for most of the work. However, the perspectives of the fam ily and the staff must be identified in order to get a comprehensive pictur e of significant duality factors in child healthcare. One aim of this study was to assess the views of mothers and public health nurses concerning a C HP programme and the first home visit to parents of newborn children. Other aims were to compare mothers' and nurses' views of CHP programmes in relat ion to age, experience, structure of organization and urbanization, and mot hers' views in relation to social position, health of the children, primi- or multipara, country of birth and urbanization. Two national postal questi onnaires, one sent to the mothers (850), the other to public health nurses (291), yielded data for analysis. Both mothers' and public health nurses' v iews of what constitutes good child healthcare were found to concur with th e official goals of child health promotion. Important quality indicators we re said to be: kind treatment, competence, time, support, an all-round view , the individual perspective, and home visits to primipara parents.