Vision disorders in preterm-born children and the additional role of screen time

Aims Preterm-born children are more susceptible to refractive errors like myopia and astigmatism. Lifestyle and digital media play a central part in lives of adolescents; prolonged indoor screen time has adverse visual consequences. Our aim was to measure the prevalence of spectacle wear among preterm-born toddlers and adolescents, and to assess...

School health promotion and the consumption of water and sugar-sweetened beverages by secundary school adolescents: a multilevel story

Aims: Overweight among adolescents remains a serious concern in the western world and can have major health consequences in later life, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Still, 33% of secondary school adolescents in the Netherlands consume sugar-sweetened beverages daily and over 26% do not consume water every day. The Dutch Healthy...

Guideline for preventive child health care in the Netherlands: detecting disorders associated with short and tall stature

AIMS: To develop a guideline for preventive child healthcare (PCHC) professionals in order to improve early detection of pathological disorders associated with short stature (or growth faltering) or tall stature (or accelerated growth). Target groups include primary growth disorders (e.g. dysmorphic syndromes, such as Turner, Noonan, Prader...

Early developmental milestones and special educational needs

AIMS: To identify key developmental milestones between 12-45 months in children requiring special education later in life. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data on 36 milestones (gross and fine motor skills, adaptive/personal/social behavior, communication) from the Dutch Development Instrument, education type and background characteristics were obtained...

Videos to support caregivers in assessing developmental milestones: experiences and determinants of future and current use

Aims The Dutch Development Instrument (DDI) measures child development with milestones. Videos were developed that allow caregivers to assess these developmental milestones for their child before they go to youth health care (YHC). By involving caregivers in their child's development, they are likely to be better prepared for the visit. The aim...

Short development milestone risk assessment tool to identify Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

AIMS: An important goal of monitoring developmental milestones is the early identification of a wide range of disorders that affect child development. Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is generally detected late and therefore treated late, but previous research showed that more DMD boys fail to attain certain milestones than the general...

Conversation in preventive health care: needs assessment and tool development

Aim Conversation between Child Healthcare Professionals (CHPs) and parents and adolescents plays an important role in the quality and success of preventive health care delivery. However, there is no practice guideline on conversation. This study aimed to study 1) the needs of parents, adolescents, and Child Healthcare professionals regarding...

Preventing multiple health risks and mental health problems in adolescents by preventive child healthcare: a reflection tool

Health risk behaviors, such as smoking, drug use, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and obesity, often accumulate during adolescence and are relatively persistent throughout the life course. Moreover, these can make youth vulnerable for developing consequent (mental) health problems. Community pediatric services (in the Netherlands...

Predicting obesity in adolescents from birth to age 6 years

Aims –Identification of children with an increased risk of future overweight or obesity enables targeted preventive strategies. The objective of this study is to develop a screening algorithm that can detect young children with a high risk on overweight or obesity at early adolescence (age 10 – 14 years). Materials and methods – We analyzed a...

Rates of spectacle wear in early childhood: are preventive measures for refractive errors indicated?

Aims Refractive errors are relatively common all around the world. In particular, early onset myopia is associated with a significant burden in later life. Little is known about refractive errors in preschool children. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of spectacle wear, visual acuity and refractive errors in young Dutch...

What is the use of guidelines if they are not being used?

Aims Guidelines can be defined as documents with recommendations aimed at improving the quality of care and uniformity. They are based on systematic reviews of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of various care options, complemented by expertise and experiences of professionals and clients. In the Netherlands, there are 35...

Towards new reference for the Dutch development instrument

Aims The Dutch Development Instrument (DDI; in Dutch: Van Wiechenonderzoek) is used in the Dutch Youth Health Care (YHC) to monitor child development from birth to the age of 4 years. Reference values for the DDI, which indicate that approximately 90% of children achieve each milestone at the recommended age, were published in 1981. Aim of this...

Demonstration of efficient assessment of developmental status with the D-score

There are many milestones available to measure child development in the first years of life. For less experienced professionals it is difficult to select the most relevant milestones to assess the developmental status of a child. Moreover, using the milestones separately makes is difficult to get a global impression of the developmental status....

Child development with the D-score

Session Keynote. Healthy growth and development in young children are essential for their future well-being. Professionals and parents consider it necessary to monitor children’s development. While we can track the child’s physical growth by growth charts to identify children with signs of potential delay, there are no charts for monitoring...