Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36379665›Full record

Observational studyBMJ open2022

Parent, teacher, and nurse concerns and school doctor actions: an observational study of general health checks.

Kirsi Nikander, Elina Hermanson, Tero Vahlberg, Minna Kaila, Silja Kosola

Registry-linked trialOpen access · goldAbstract readObservational Study
In one paragraph

Observational study in BMJ open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03178331 (Who Benefit From School Doctors' Health Checks), which is not on this map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
0.3field-weighted citation impact, top 36% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT03178331 completednot on this map

Who Benefit From School Doctors' Health Checks: a Prospective Study of a Screening Method in Finland

Typeobservational_patient_registrySponsorUniversity of HelsinkiRan2017 to 2023Enrolled1,013ConditionsSchool Health ServicesArmsStudy questionnaires
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.

Kirsi NikanderDepartment of Social Services and Healthcare, City of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland kirsi.nikander@iki.fi.ORCID 0000-0002-8196-5167
Elina HermansonPikkujätti Medical Center for Children and Youth, Helsinki, Finland.
Tero VahlbergDepartment of Clinical Medicine, Biostatistics, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
Minna KailaUniversity of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Silja KosolaPediatric Research Center, New Children's Hospital, Helsinki, Finland.ORCID 0000-0002-2881-8299
University of Helsinki · FIHelsinki Children's Hospital · FIUniversity of Turku · FI

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveTo evaluate the association between the concerns of parents, teachers, and nurses regarding each child's well-being and the school doctor actions conducted in routine general health checks.

designA blinded, observational study. Prior to the health check parents, teachers, and nurses completed questionnaires assessing their concerns. Doctors, blinded to the responses, routinely examined all children accompanied by parents and reported their actions after each health check. Multilevel logistic regression was used to analyse the association of the concerns with the actions.

setting21 primary schools in four municipalities in Finland.

participantsBetween August 2017 and August 2018, we randomly recruited 1341 children from grades 1 and 5, aged 7 and 11 years, respectively. OUTCOME MEASURES: Outcome measures were the respondents' concerns and the school doctor actions. The extent of concerns was assessed on a five-point Likert scale. Concern refers to 'Quite a lot or a great deal of concern' by at least one respondent. The school doctor actions included instructions and/or significant discussions, prescriptions, laboratory tests and/or medical imaging, scheduling of follow-up appointments, referrals to other professionals, and referrals to specialised care.

resultsAltogether, respondents were concerned about 47.5% of children. The top three concerns comprised growth/and or physical symptoms (22.7%), emotions (16.2%), and concentration (15.1%). All concerns were associated with some type of school doctor action (ORs: 1.66-4.27, p≤0.05); but only concerns regarding growth and/or physical symptoms were associated with all actions. Almost all concerns were associated with referrals to other professionals (ORs: 1.80-4.52, p≤0.01); emotions had the strongest association OR 4.52 (95% CI 3.00 to 6.80, p<0.0001).

conclusionsHealth checks by school doctors may lead to referrals of children to other professionals especially for children's psychosocial problems. This should be considered when developing the roles, training, and multiprofessional collaboration of school health care professionals.

trial registrationNCT03178331.

Indexed as

ParentsPhysiciansChildHumansSchoolsSurveys and Questionnairesorganisation of health servicespaediatricsprimary care

Identifiers

PMID36379665
PMCPMC9668019
OpenAlexW4309066500

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.