Predictors of nonattendance at the first newborn health supervision visit.

Predictors of nonattendance at the first newborn health supervision visit.

Specht E M; Bourguet C C

Clinical pediatrics

1994

1994-05

Failure to attend the first newborn health supervision visit is an important problem for the Continuity Care Clinic of Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron, Ohio. The goal of this study was to use objective data from the neonatal record to identify newborns at high risk of failure to attend. Clinical and social risk factors of the mother and newborn were abstracted from the neonatal progress notes of 319 infants. The relative risk (RR) of nonattendance was calculated for each factor, and rules for predicting failure to attend were evaluated. The best predictors were multiparous mother (RR = 2.4, P = .01), no telephone in home (RR = 2.6, P = .002), and unmarried teenage mother (RR = 5.8, P = .05). Newborns who had a medical problem and had a adult mother were more likely to attend (RR = 0.4, P = .02). These risk factors were easily identifiable from the medical record at birth. Because interventions may be labor-intensive, it is important to target the families at the highest risk.

*Infant; *Pediatrics; *Primary Prevention; *Treatment Refusal; 100 to 299; Adolescent; Adult; Female; Hospital Bed Capacity; Hospital/*statistics & numerical data; Humans; Mothers/psychology; Newborn; Ohio; Outpatient Clinics; Physical Examination; Risk Factors; Socioeconomic Factors

Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

273–279

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