School attendance is crucial for the development of a child. Sickness absence is the most common type of absenteeism and can be a red flag for underlying problems. To address sickness absence, the intervention Medical Advice for Sick-reported Students for Primary School (MASS-PS) was recently developed. It targets children at risk and is a school-based child and youth health care intervention. The present study is a process evaluation of the intervention. MASS-PS was implemented and evaluated in 29 schools in the West-Brabant region of the Netherlands, during three school years (2017-2020). Attendance coordinators (ACs) from the different schools were interviewed in six focus group interviews as well as in over 200 individual conversations, of which logbooks were kept. Content analysis was used based on a framework of implementation elements. During the first year of the study, the uptake was low. Changes were made by the project group to improve the uptake. The ACs generally considered the MASS-PS as compatible and relevant, but suggested improvements by adding a medical consultation function with a child and youth healthcare physician and increasing the threshold for selecting children at risk. They saw several personal benefits, although time was necessary to learn to use the intervention. An organisational barrier was the lack of teaching staff. A strength in the organisational structure was the appointment of ACs. A major event in the sociological structure was the COVID-19 pandemic. ACs felt that the intervention helped them keep track of sickness absence during the pandemic. The Medical Advice for Sick-reported Students for Primary School intervention was implemented successfully, and the process evaluation gave insight into possible improvements.
Keywords: MASS; child and youth healthcare; implementation; medical advice; primary school; process evaluation; school absenteeism; sickness absence.