Almost all parents in Sweden are invited to parental groups organized by the child health service (CHS) during their child's first year, but only 40% chose to attend. The aim of this study was to describe parents' experiences of participating in these parental groups. A total of 143 parents from 71 different parental groups at 27 child health-care (CHC) centres in one Swedish county completed an online questionnaire. A majority of the parents found the parental groups to be meaningful and more than 60% met someone in the group who they socialized with outside the meetings. Parents wanted a greater focus on child-related community information, existential questions, relationships and parenting in general. Group leadership seems to be of significance to how parents in a group connect and whether the parental role is affected. Making CHC nurses more aware of the topics parents desire could help them meet parents' needs. Education and training in group dynamics and group leadership could be of value in further improving the high-quality service CHC nurses already offer parents. More knowledge is needed about what would attract those parents who do not participate.

Managing parental groups during early childhood: New challenges faced by Swedish child health-care nurses.Lefevre, Åsa; Lundqvist, Pia; Drevenhorn, Eva; Hallström, Inger General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal AbstractThe purpose of this study was to describe child health centre (CHC) nurses' views of managing parental groups during early childhood. All 311 CHC nurses working within the Swedish CHC system in one county were asked to complete a web-based questionnaire. Findings showed that although the CHC nurses were experienced several found group leadership challenging and difficult. The need for specialized groups for young parents, single parents and parents whose first language was not Swedish was identified by 57% of the nurses. The CHC nurses found the participation of fathers in their parental groups to be low (an estimate of 10 to 20%) and 30% of the nurses made special efforts to make the fathers participate. Education in group dynamics and group leadership can strengthen CHC nurses in managing parental groups. It is recommended that specialized parental groups are organized by a few family centres so CHC nurses can develop their skill in managing such groups.

Clarifying the role of group leader and adding knowledge about group leadership and dynamics seems to have increased the self-confidence for child healthcare nurses in group leadership. Improved confidence in group management might motivate the child healthcare nurses to further develop parental groups to attract the parents who currently choose not to participate.

BackgroundAll parents in Sweden are invited to child health service (CHS) parental groups, however only 49% of the families participate. The way the parental groups are managed has been shown to be of importance for how parents experience the support and CHS nurses describe feeling insecure when running the groups. Lack of facilitation, structure and leadership might jeopardise the potential benefit of such support groups. This study describes CHS nurses’ experiences of how a course in group leadership affected the way they ran their parental groups.MethodsA course in group leadership given to 56 CHS nurses was evaluated in focus group interviews 5–8 months after the course.ResultsThe nurses felt strengthened in their group leader role and changed their leadership methods. The management of parental groups was after the course perceived as an important work task and the nurses included time for planning, preparation and evaluation, which they felt improved their parental groups. Parental participation in the activities in the group had become a key issue and they used their new exercises and tools to increase this. They expressed feeling more confident and relaxed in their role as group leaders and felt that they could adapt their leadership to the needs of the parents.ConclusionsSpecific training might strengthen the CHS nurses in their group leader role and give them new motivation to fulfil their work with parental groups.Trial registration Clinical Trials.gov ID: NCT02494128.