Background And Objective

Prior studies suggest that pediatricians believe discussing health policy issues with families is important. Caregiver preferences on these discussions, however, have not been examined. We explored circumstances in which caregivers may be receptive to discussing health policy issues with pediatricians.

Methods

We conducted 26 semistructured interviews with mostly Black female caregivers at 3 urban academic pediatric primary care practices. Using both structured and open response questions, we explored 4 primary content areas: 1) caregivers’ perspectives on discussing health policy issues in pediatricians' offices; 2) which health policy topics caregivers may prefer to discuss; 3) factors that render policy discussions in the clinic inappropriate to caregivers; and 4) which communication modalities caregivers prefer. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed using content analysis.

Results

Themes that emerged from interviews included: 1) pediatricians are perceived as trusted information sources on health policy; 2) caregivers want to talk with pediatricians about children's health insurance policy changes; 3) time constraints are a barrier to health policy discussions; 4) caregivers prefer to discuss health policy topics during well-child visits; 5) caregivers want the option to opt-out of these conversations; 6) preferred modalities for communicating about health policy issues, including printed materials and health fairs or educational events.

Conclusions

Caregivers expressed a satisfactory view of pediatricians discussing directly relevant health policy issues, including congressional debates on health insurance, in the primary care setting. Our findings highlight other caregiver preferences for engaging families in health policy discussions, including the timing of these conversations.

中文翻译：

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看护者对儿科医生发起的卫生政策讨论的看法的定性研究

背景和目的

先前的研究表明，儿科医生认为与家人讨论卫生政策问题很重要。然而，尚未检查照顾者对这些讨论的偏好。我们探讨了护理人员可能愿意与儿科医生讨论卫生政策问题的情况。

方法

我们对 3 个城市学术儿科初级保健机构的大多数黑人女性看护者进行了 26 次半结构化访谈。使用结构化和开放式回答问题，我们探讨了 4 个主要内容领域：1) 看护者在儿科医生办公室讨论卫生政策问题时的观点；2) 看护者可能更愿意讨论哪些健康政策主题；3) 使护理人员不适合在诊所进行政策讨论的因素；4) 护理人员更喜欢哪种沟通方式。使用内容分析对访谈记录进行编码和分析。

结果

访谈中出现的主题包括：1) 儿科医生被认为是有关卫生政策的可靠信息来源；2）看护人想和儿科医生谈谈儿童医保政策的变化；3) 时间限制是卫生政策讨论的障碍；4) 照顾者更喜欢在儿童健康访问期间讨论健康政策主题；5) 护理人员希望选择退出这些对话；6) 就卫生政策问题进行交流的首选方式，包括印刷材料和卫生展或教育活动。

结论

护理人员对儿科医生在初级保健环境中讨论直接相关的健康政策问题（包括国会关于健康保险的辩论）表示满意。我们的研究结果强调了其他看护者偏好让家人参与健康政策讨论，包括这些对话的时间安排。