Parental satisfaction with the support received during the early childhood by paediatric team: development and validation of a questionnaire

Abstract

Background: The Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy of the Spanish National Health System has a prevention line aimed at early childhood in which parental support is promoted at primary care settings. This article describes the development and validation of a questionnaire that assesses parental satisfaction with the support received by the paediatric team. Methods: Participants were 226 parental figures with children from birth to three, users of the Canarian Health System. Data was collected during 2018 and 2019. The factor structure was obtained by Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) with oblimin rotation, and the estimation method using the Weighted Least Squares with moving measurement window (WLSMW) for confirmatory purposes. Moreover, individual differences were analysed through sociodemographic variables and child health status by means of ANOVAs. Results: The main results showed an optimal factorization of the construct involving a four-factor model and 14 items with a reliability of α=0.84, dealing with ‘Adequacy of the service’, ‘Discontent with the service’, ‘Collaboration with the family’, and promotion of ‘Parental capacity’. The sociodemographic profile analysis showed that a higher educational level was related to lower satisfaction with the service. Conclusions: The questionnaire is an useful assessment tool to improve the quality of the service, according to the Family-Centred Model and the Positive Parenting European framework, which meets psychometric guarantees of validity and reliability.