A systematic review of the effectiveness of universal Health Visitor led Child Health Clinics

Webb, Jo; Meyrick, Jane

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a systematic review undertaken to assess how effectively health visitor led child health clinics (‘baby clinics’) contribute to the promotion of pre-school child health and the reduction of health inequalities.

Despite the widespread presence of baby clinics across the UK, there is little published research about the service model, its purpose or effectiveness. The initial search produced 559 articles, after removing duplicates, 175 abstracts were assessed against the inclusion criteria and 24 qualitative studies were identified as relevant to the review. No studies were excluded based on quality issues, however the quality of studies was variable. Thematic analysis was used to organise and interpret the data.

Although the review presents a synthesis of research over the last 30 years, there is a lack of evaluative research about the structure, process and outcomes of baby clinics, which makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of the service offer. Findings suggest research on the value and purpose of baby clinics is now needed and whilst good evaluation studies with clear outcome measures are sought, it is clear that the theoretical processes through which positive outcomes are promoted need to be established first.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 11, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Sep 22, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jun 8, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 27, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Health Visiting
• Print ISSN: 2050-8719
• Publisher: MA Healthcare
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 9
• Pages: 462-471
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.12968/johv.2016.4.9.462
• Keywords: child health clinics, baby clinics, health visitor clinics, weighing clinics
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/924324
• Publisher URL: http://www.journalofhealthvisiting.com/cgi-bin/go.pl/library/article.cgi?uid=107856;article=hv_4_9_462_471
• Contract Date: Jun 8, 2016