Understanding parent engagement in advanced allied health single session therapy for children with developmental and behavioural disabilities

Abstract

Background: Increasingly, health services are adopting short-term consultative therapy models, such as single session therapy, to cope with increased service demands, finite budgets and changing consumer expectations. Within the paediatric sub-specialty of child development and behaviour, allied health clinicians are central to supporting families to understand their children, provide therapeutic interventions and help achieve optimal developmental and health outcomes. This study aimed to describe parents'/caregivers' engagement during advanced allied health consultations utilizing a single session therapy framework for managing neurodevelopmental and behavioural concerns in children.

Methods: Between March to June 2021, 14 parents participated in a qualitative study involving focus groups. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to code and interpret the data to understand and explore families' engagement in single session therapy.

Results: Three overarching themes relating to parents' engagement during consultations emerged from the data: connection with the clinician, parental attributes and organizational influences. Clinician connection was the prominent construct that enhanced parent attributes and the positive perception of the organization in an ongoing manner. There was a complex interplay between the behavioural and affective components of the clinician, parents and the organization to create mutual presence, valued time, understanding and action.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates the importance of clinician connection, parental attributes and organizational influences to enhance engagement in therapeutic consultations. These factors are interrelated and are a complex blend of behaviour and internal states and highly individualized for each family. Understanding how services can continue to engage families is integral to ongoing sustainability and overall health and well-being.

Keywords: behaviour; development; engagement; occupational therapy; paediatrics; psychology; speech and language pathology.