Peer-reviewed article
Improving health, wellbeing and parenting skills in parents of children with special health care needs and medical complexity – a scoping review
Sally Bradshaw, Danai Bem, Karen L. Shaw, Beck Taylor, Christopher Chiswell et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This scoping review examines interventions designed to improve health, wellbeing and parenting skills in parents of children with special health care needs and medical complexity. The review identified 65 studies across various intervention types, including parenting programs, peer support, and hospital admission support. Most studies reported positive outcomes for parents, though the review found that children with medical complexity were not explicitly studied in any included research. The authors conclude that parents have diverse support needs across their child's condition trajectory and that interventions could be better integrated into routine healthcare.
Key points
- Most identified studies (65 from 10,154 citations) reported positive outcomes for parent health, wellbeing and parenting skills
- No explicit studies focused on children with medical complexity, despite this being a key focus area of the review
- Issues identified included group and peer relationship dynamics, timing of interventions relative to disease trajectory, and unmet expectations
- Interventions were diverse, targeting broad parent outcomes and delivered by various professionals and lay workers
- Authors recommend tailoring interventions for feasibility within routine care settings and relevance across the complexity spectrum
Limitations
This is a scoping review synthesizing existing literature rather than conducting new research, so it cannot provide direct evidence of intervention effectiveness. The review explicitly notes that further research is needed to quantify benefits and assess evidence quality, particularly for parents of children with medical complexity.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Parenting children with special health care needs can be challenging particularly if children have complex conditions. Parents may struggle to manage their child's health and their own emotions, contributing to poorer health outcomes for the family. Frequent healthcare contact presents opportunities to intervene, but current evidence review is limited. This review scopes and synthesizes interventions to improve health, wellbeing and parenting skills. METHODS: Using formal scoping review methodology MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, ERIC, ASSIA, HMIC and OpenGrey were searched to February 2017. Citations were double screened according to predetermined eligibility criteria. Data were extracted and synthesized on study design, population, measurement tools, and results. RESULTS: Sixty-five studies from 10,154 citations were included spanning parenting programs, other parent behavior change interventions, peer support, support for hospital admission and discharge and others. Interventions for parents of children with a wide range of conditions were included. These targeted a broad selection of parent outcomes, delivered by a wide variety of professionals and lay workers. Most studies reported positive outcomes. No serious adverse events were noted but issues identified included group and peer relationship dynamics, timing of interventions in relation to the child's disease trajectory, the possibility of expectations not fulfilled, and parent's support needs following intervention. Children with medical complexity were not identified explicitly in any studies. CONCLUSIONS: The range of interventions identified in this review confirms that parents have significant and diverse support needs, and are likely to benefit from a number of interventions targeting specific issues and outcomes across their child's condition trajectory. There is much scope for these to be provided within existing multi-disciplinary teams during routine health care contacts. Careful tailoring is needed to ensure interventions are both feasible for delivery within routine care settings and relevant and accessible for parents of children across the complexity spectrum. Further review of the existing literature is needed to quantify the benefits for parents and assess the quality of the evidence. Further development of interventions to address issues that are relevant and meaningful to parents is needed to maximize intervention effectiveness in this context.