Clarifying parents' and pediatricians' views of partnership

Purpose: given the importance of partnership in improving health care outcomes among children,there is a substantial need to understand better what partnership means to parents and physicians. the goal of this study was to develop a partnership survey that was based on parents' and pediatricians' opinions about the key concepts of partnership. methods: parents of patients visiting an affluent suburban private practice and a federally qualified health center,and 2 groups of pediatricians,were asked to review 61 partnership concepts and identify those they considered as being important to partnership. results: parents and pediatricians from both practices agreed that 42 (68.9%) of the concepts were important to partnership. sixteen of these concepts were dropped because they were redundant. parents from both the suburban practice and health center identified 5 (8.2%) concepts that they believed contributed to partnership. seven (11.5%) concepts were viewed as important to parents and pediatricians from the suburban practice but not to parents from the health center. significant socioeconomic differences between the 2 parent groups suggested factors that explained the differences between parent groups. conclusion: the 38 concepts endorsed by parents and pediatricians provided a nuanced view of partnership and formed the parent pediatrician partnership survey.