General parental education in Sweden: Participants and non-participants

Abstract

Objective - To study factors of importance for participation in parental education within routine child health care. Design - All parents of children born during 1 year were invited by the district nurse to participate in parental education; their participation during the infant year was registered. Setting - Catchment area of two health centres in Växjö, Sweden. Subjects - 221 infants and their parents. Main outcome measures - Number of educational sessions for mothers and fathers. Results - 63% of mothers and 20% of fathers attended at least one session. These mothers attended a mean of 5.7 (SD 2.2) sessions and these fathers a mean of 2.8 (SD 2.3) sessions. Logistic regression analyses showed that the only variable of significance for participation was being a first-time parent (odds ratio 3.9 for the mothers and 3.7 for the fathers). Odds ratios above 2.0 (non-significant) were found for married mothers and Swedish mothers, as well as for Swedish fathers. Conclusion - It is still a considerable problem to get certain groups involved in routine parental education in Swedish child healthcare programmes.