Caretaker Awareness of Health Care Provided Developmental Screening: Increases from 2007 to 2012

Abstract

Objectives Developmental screening is considered critical to identifying children with developmental delays and disabilities so that they may receive early intervention. To date, only a handful of studies report data on the percentage of health care professionals (HCP) who provide developmental screening. These reports are limited by low participation rates and reporters being pediatricians who may be biased towards reporting higher rates of developmental screening. The purpose of this study is to verify reported increases by reporting on changes in caretakers' awareness of HCP provided developmental screening from 2007/2008 to 2011/2012. Methods Authors report data on caretaker reported receipt of HCP provided developmental screening from the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH, 2007/2008) and NSCH (2011/2012), as well as changes from the 2007/2008 to 2011/2012. Changes for the 50 states plus Washington D.C. are visualized using 'micromapST' and states are organized in ascending order according to changes in caretaker awareness of developmental screening. Results Nationally, the proportion of caretakers aware that their HCP provided developmental screening increased from 23.0% in 2007/2008 (range 12.6–46%) to 33.3% in 2011/2012 (range 19.4–61.6%) and states level changes ranged from −2 to +35%, with a median change of +10%. Conclusions for Practice Data reported here indicate that a greater number of caretakers are aware that their HCP is providing developmental screening. This reinforces the existing reports indicating increases in HCP reported developmental screening. Despite growth, there is still a need to increase developmental screening efforts in many states.