A Controlled Clinical Trial of "Family Care" Compared With "Child-Only Care" in the Comprehensive Primary Care of Children

We performed a randomized controlled clinical trial in a health center serving a poor population to attempt to find the differences, if any, between the effectiveness of primary care provided to children by two patterns of comprehensive medical care practiced by a pediatrician-internist-allied health team--one pattern offering care exclusively to children and the other offering care to both children and their parents. The study demonstrated few measurable differences between the two groups of children in either utilization or outcome. Where there were differences, most tended to favor slightly the family pattern of care: older children maintained their use of the center, immunization was somewhat more timely and children over time appeared to make fewer visits to sources of ambulatory care other than the health center. The absence of more or greater measurable differences may be due to the relatively short period of study, to the extremely disadvantaged population served, to the special model of family care used or to the comprehensive, team-based care provided to both groups of children

Family medicine · Primary care · Diverse Approaches in Healthcare and Education Studies · Family Support in Illness · Medicine · Nursing · Pediatric health and respiratory diseases · Psychology