General practice

Randomised controlled trial of effect of Baby Check on use of health services in first 6 months of life

BMJ 1999; 318 doi: 10.1136/bmj.318.7200.1740 (Published 26 June 1999)
Cite this as: BMJ 1999;318:1740
  1. Hilary Thomson, research fellow (Hilary.Thomson{at}ed.ac.uk)a,
  2. Sue Ross, lecturer in health service researcha,
  3. Philip Wilson, senior research fellowa,
  4. Alex McConnachie, statisticiana,
  5. Richard Watson, general practitionerb
  1. aDepartment of General Practice, University of Glasgow, Woodside Health Centre, Glasgow, G20 7LR
  2. bCraigallian Surgery, 11 Craigallian Avenue, Glasgow G72 8RW
  1. Correspondence to: H Thomson, Department of Community Health Sciences, General Practice Primary Care Research Group, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9DX

    Abstract

    Objective: To evaluate the effect of Baby Check, an illness scoring system for babies of 6 months or less, on parents' use of health services for their baby.

    Design:Randomised controlled trial.

    Setting: 13 general practices in Glasgow.

    Subjects: 997 newly delivered mothers, randomised to receive either Baby Check and Play It Safe, an accident prevention leaflet (n=497), or Play It Safealone (control group, n=500).

    Main outcome measures:Data on consultations and referrals extracted from general practice notes after 6 months.

    Results: At the time of recruitment, maternal characteristics were similar for both groups (mean maternal age 29 years; deprivation categories 6 and 1 in both groups; 424 (45%) mothers were primiparous). At 6 months, general practice notes were available for 467 (94%) of the Baby Check group and 468 (94%) of the control group. The number of general practitioner consultations did not differ between the groups: median number of consultations was 2 (interquartile range 1 to 4) in the Baby Check group, and 2 (1 to 3) in the control group. Use of out of hours services did not differ significantly between the two groups (86 v 85; P=0.93).

    Conclusion: Distributing Baby Check to an unselected group of mothers does not affect use of health services for infants up to 6 months of age.

    Footnotes

    • Funding Funding: Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Office Department of Health funded this study. The views expressed are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding body.

    • Competing interests None declared.

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