<p>Caregiver depression impacts parenting behaviors and has deleterious effects on child behavior. Evidence-based interventions to address parenting have not been adapted for use with depressed caregivers in pediatric primary care settings. Our study examined the feasibility and explored outcomes of an evidence-based parenting program implemented in primary care and adapted for caregivers with depressive symptoms caring for toddlers. We conducted a randomized controlled trial with a wait-list control. Participants were caregivers who screened positive for depressive symptoms in pediatric settings with a toddler. Our study was implemented from July 2011 to June 2012. We adapted the Incredible Years Parents, Babies and Toddlers program with the addition of depression psychoeducation (12 weekly sessions), and assessed caregivers at baseline and immediately post-intervention. We assessed participation rates, depressive symptoms, parenting discipline practices, social support, and parenting stress. Our results revealed that 32 caregivers participating in the intervention group had significantly greater improvement in self-reported parenting discipline practices compared to the 29 wait-list control group caregivers. We found no differences between groups in depressive symptoms, social support, or parenting stress. Our study demonstrated that the average attendance was poor (mean attendance&nbsp;=&nbsp;3.7 sessions). We adapted an evidence-based parenting intervention for caregivers with depressive symptoms and toddlers in primary care; however, participation was challenging. Alternative intervention strategies are needed to reach and retain low-income caregivers with depression symptoms as they face multiple barriers to participation in groups within center-based services. Trial Registration Clinical Trials.gov identifier NCT01464619.</p>

<p>We sought to determine feasibility and acceptability of parental depression screening in urban pediatric practices. We recruited seven practices to participate. Patient Health Questionnaire-2, a validated two-item screening tool, was used to screen for depressive symptoms at 1-3 year old well visits. We conducted semi-structured interviews with clinicians to identify barriers and facilitators to screening. Of 8,621 eligible parents, 21.1% completed screening with site-specific rates ranging from 10.1% to 48.5%. Among those screened, 8.1% screened positive for depressive symptoms with site-specific rates ranging from 1.2% to 16.9%. Electronic alerts improved screening rates from 45 / month to 170 / month. Fifteen clinicians completed interviews and endorsed screening to provide help for families, build stronger ties with parents, and improve outcomes for children. However, insufficient time, need to complete activities with higher priority, lack of mental health availability, few resources for parents with limited English proficiency, and discomfort addressing depression were thought to limit screening.</p>

<p>We sought to determine feasibility and acceptability of parental depression screening in urban pediatric practices. We recruited seven practices to participate. Patient Health Questionnaire-2, a validated two-item screening tool, was used to screen for depressive symptoms at 1-3 year old well visits. We conducted semi-structured interviews with clinicians to identify barriers and facilitators to screening. Of 8,621 eligible parents, 21.1% completed screening with site-specific rates ranging from 10.1% to 48.5%. Among those screened, 8.1% screened positive for depressive symptoms with site-specific rates ranging from 1.2% to 16.9%. Electronic alerts improved screening rates from 45 / month to 170 / month. Fifteen clinicians completed interviews and endorsed screening to provide help for families, build stronger ties with parents, and improve outcomes for children. However, insufficient time, need to complete activities with higher priority, lack of mental health availability, few resources for parents with limited English proficiency, and discomfort addressing depression were thought to limit screening.</p>

<p><strong>BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: </strong>Pediatric inpatients with communication impairment may experience inadequate pain and symptom management. Research regarding potential variation in care among patients with and without communication impairment is hampered because existing pediatric databases do not include information about patient communication ability per se, even though these data sets do contain information about diagnoses and medical interventions that are probably correlated with the probability of communication impairment. Our objective was to develop and evaluate a classification model to identify patients in a large administrative database likely to be communication impaired.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>Our sample included 236 hospitalized patients aged ≥12 months whose ability to communicate about pain had been assessed. We randomly split this sample into development (n = 118) and validation (n = 118) sets. A priori, we developed a set of specific diagnoses, technology dependencies, procedures, and medications recorded in the Pediatric Health Information System likely to be strongly associated with communication impairment. We used logistic regression modeling to calculate the probability of communication impairment for each patient in the development set, assessed the model performance, and evaluated the performance of the 11-variable model in the validation set.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>In the validation sample, the classification model showed excellent classification accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.92; sensitivity 82.6%; 95% confidence interval, 74%-100%; specificity 86.3%; 95% confidence interval, 80%-97%). For the complete sample, the predicted probability of communication impairment demonstrated excellent calibration with the observed communication impairment status.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>Hospitalized pediatric patients with communication impairment can be accurately identified in a large hospital administrative database.</p>

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>Child Adult Relationship Enhancement in Primary Care (PriCARE) is a 6-session group parent training designed to teach positive parenting skills. Our objective was to measure PriCARE's impact on child behavior and parenting attitudes.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>Parents of children 2 to 6 years old with behavior concerns were randomized to PriCARE (n=80) or control (n=40). Child behavior and parenting attitudes were measured at baseline (0 weeks), program completion (9 weeks), and 7 weeks following program completion (16 weeks) using the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) and the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory-2 (AAPI2). Linear regression models compared mean ECBI and AAPI2 change scores from 0 to 16 weeks in the PriCARE and control groups, adjusted for baseline scores.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>Of those randomized to PriCARE, 43% attended 3 or more sessions. Decreases in mean ECBI intensity and problem scores between 0 and 16 weeks were greater in the PriCARE group, reflecting a larger improvement in behavior problems [intensity: -22 (-16, -29) vs -7 (2, -17), p=0.012; problem: -5 (-4, -7) vs -2 (0, -4), p=0.014]. Scores on 3 of the 5 AAPI2 sub-scales reflected greater improvements in parenting attitudes in the PriCARE group compared to control in the following areas: empathy towards children's needs [0.82 (1.14, 0.51) vs 0.25 (0.70, -0.19), p=0.04], corporal punishment [0.22 (0.45, 0.00) vs -0.30 (0.02, -0.61), p=0.009], and power and independence [0.37 (0.76, -0.02) vs -0.64 (-0.09, -1.19), p=0.003].</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>PriCARE shows promise in improving parent-reported child-behavior problems in preschool-aged children and increasing positive parenting attitudes.</p>

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>Pediatric inpatients may be at risk for inadequate pain management if they are unable to communicate effectively because of age, physical or cognitive impairment, or medical procedures. We conducted a point prevalence study to estimate the proportion of inpatients at a children's hospital who have difficulty communicating to hospital staff.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>We obtained nurse reports of ability to communicate for all inpatients aged ≥12 months in a pediatric hospital. Demographic information was obtained from the medical record.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>Questionnaires were completed for 254 inpatients. Forty percent of inpatients had some difficulty communicating, and 69% had experienced pain during the hospitalization. Patient ability to communicate was not related to experiencing pain (χ(2) test, P = .30) or effectiveness of pain management (χ(2) test, P = .80) but was associated with difficulty communicating about pain and nurses needing help from the caretaker to communicate with the patient (χ(2) tests, Ps &lt; .001).</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>A substantial proportion of inpatients aged ≥12 months at a large children's hospital had difficulties communicating effectively and experienced pain during hospitalization. These communication difficulties were not associated with nurse reports of the effectiveness of pain management. However, patients who had difficulties communicating in general were also more likely to have difficulty communicating about pain specifically, and nurses were more likely to need help from the caregiver to understand these patients. Future directions include identifying which conditions, procedures, and medications are associated with inability to communicate.</p>