[Barriers to and facilitating factors in school entry examination with SOPESS: Development of an online training to enhance basic diagnostic skills (KOMET-SEU project)].

Abstract

The preschool health examination makes a significant contribution in terms of both individual and population medicine to positively shaping the long-term future of children starting school. To gain optimal benefit from the examination data, it is necessary that the examination process with SOPESS (social pediatric screening) is standardized. However, practical experience from the public health service has shown that the data collected to date indicates medium to high method-related heterogeneity at the level of the SOPESS raw value totals, which can have a negative impact on the validity of the data.The aim is to identify barriers to and facilitating factors for the implementation of SOPESS and to reduce method-related heterogeneity by providing a customized training measure. This project was realized in two studies. In study 1, 56 employees from 21 child and adolescent health service departments were interviewed by telephone about possible barriersto and facilitating factors in the implementation of SOPESS. These results were then used to design an online training to strengthen basic diagnostic skills, which was tested in study 2 with 25 persons in an initial application phase (piloting) and evaluated and adapted regarding various factors (e. g. practical relevance and suggestions for improvement).In Study 1, a central cause of the method-related heterogeneity was identified as the deviation of those carrying out the tests from the standardized test instructions. In the evaluation, there were uncertainties in the assessment of the visuomotor tasks. A video-based presentation of a standardized examination could prove to be beneficial to enhance the basic diagnostic skills of the examiners in the long term. In study 2, the results of the piloting of the online training were positive: Almost all persons (22 of 25) rated the online training as relevant to practice regarding the implementation and evaluation of the SOPESS and believed it would improve the quality of implementation of the SOPESS.The online training was then comprehensively evaluated in an application phase in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. Following completion of the evaluation phase, the online training is to be adapted and offered on a broad scale to enhance the diagnostic skills of employees in the departments of child and adolescent health service in the long-term, and support the collection of valid data as part of preschool health examination.