Concerns of Parents Requesting Screening Tests for Their Children: a cross-sectional study
Abstract Background and objectiveWhile previous researchers provide insights into parental concerns about emotional, developmental, or behavioural problems in children, it is not known how children's complaints and possible medical conditions related to these complaints impact parent concerns. The aim of this study is to investigate concerns of parents visiting a family physician to request screening tests for their own child.MethodsOur sample was 407 children aged 2-16 years visiting a family physician for screening in Rize, a city in the Black Sea (Northern part) Region of Turkey, from January 2019 to January 2020. After January 2020, the researchers contacted 407 parents of the children by telephone and they completed the questionnaire via phone calls. The questionnaire includes sociodemographic data, parents’ opinion about screening tests, parent concern scores, children's complaints and probable medical conditions related with those complaints during the visit. The data was analyzed using the SPSS (SPSS v26) statistical analysis program.ResultsThe mean age of the children was 7.9 ± 4.2 years and the mean age of the parents was 31.7 ± 8.3 years. Of the parents, 65.8% (n=268) were female and of the children, 54.1% (n=220) were male. Of the parents, 60.0% (n=244) had concerns when they requested screening tests for their own child. Of the children, 40.0% (n=163) had no complaints. Of the parents, 56.8% (n=231) were not in favor of requesting a screening test for their child if he/she had no complaints. There was a significant relationship between parents’ opinion about screening tests and parent concerns/children’s complaints (p<0.001). Children’s complaints and probable medical conditions related with the complaints had significant impact on the mean score of parent concerns (p<0.001).ConclusionsThis study has shown that most of the children who underwent screening were not asymptomatic and most of the parents who requested screening tests for their own child had concerns related with their child's complaint/s. The concerns of parents were the main motivation for requesting screening.