Facts

Contact person:
Elisabeth Mangrio
Financer:
  • Region Skåne
Responsible at MaU:
Elisabeth Mangrio
Project members:
Collaborators and other project members:
  • Region Skåne
  • Kommunförbundet Skåne
  • Kunskapscentrum BHV Skåne
Time frame:
01 January 2019 - 31 December 2022
Faculty/department:
Research subject:

About the project

The goal for the Swedish child healthcare service is to provide the best possible health for all children. To achieve equal and fair health care, the Swedish child healthcare service contributes in different ways to improve care for all children, while supporting families in need of such service. Studies from both Finland and the USA show the positive effects home visits have on first-time-parents, both in the long- and in the short-run. Consequently, there is a need to continue to investigate this matter in a Swedish context. In Rinkeby, north of Stockholm, an expanded home-visit-program started in 2013, where both child healthcare nurses and social workers visited first-time parents six times over a 15-month period, reaching 119 families in all. Researchers from the Karolinska Institute evaluated this program and rated it highly. Beginning in 2019, a similar program will be conducted within Region Skåne, with a special focus on first-time parents in socially-deprived areas in the region. The program aims to expand the number of  home visits to first-time-parents within the general child care program from two to six visits. Child healthcare nurses, midwives, social workers and dental nurses will conduct the visits.  Though Region Scania will ask all child healthcare centres in Scania to apply for participation, it will prioritize socially-deprived areas. Each participating child in the extended home-visit program will be followed over a 15-month period. In total, the project will last for 2 years.

The expanded home-visits-program will be evaluated and followed by a multidisciplinary research group from Malmö University, within the framework of the program Grow Safely.  In order to contribute to the knowledge development of first-time parents, the research project aims to clarify how the participating families experience and value the program. Further, it  will examine how the professions conducting the home visits perceive their role within the program and how they can work toward a common goal based on their different professional perspectives. Finally, the project aims to examine both the organization and the implementation of the program.

Within this project, qualitative interviews will initially be conducted, focusing both on the families that participate in the program and on the organization and the professions that cooperate within it. In a later phase, a quantitative study is planned and will follow the families that are participating in the program. In order to study increased knowledge, as well as changes of attitudes among the parents, questionnaires will be distributed on several occasions during the 15 months of the program.