Growth monitoring: a survey of current practices of primary care paediatricians in Europe.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to study current practices in growth monitoring by European primary care paediatricians and to explore their perceived needs in this field.

METHODS

We developed a cross-sectional, anonymous on-line survey and contacted primary care paediatricians listed in national directories in the 18 European countries with a confederation of primary care paediatricians. Paediatricians participated in the survey between April and September 2011.

RESULTS

Of the 1,198 paediatricians from 11 European countries (response rate 13%) who participated, 29% used the 2006 World Health Organization Multicentre Growth Reference Study growth charts, 69% used national growth charts; 61% used software to draw growth charts and 79% did not use a formal algorithm to detect abnormal growth on growth charts. Among the 21% of paediatricians who used algorithms, many used non-algorithmic simple thresholds for height and weight and none used the algorithms published in the international literature. In all, 69% of paediatricians declared that a validated algorithm to monitor growth would be useful in daily practice. We found important between-country variations.

CONCLUSION

The varied growth-monitoring practices declared by primary care paediatricians reveals the need for standardization and evidence-based algorithms to define abnormal growth and the development of software that would use such algorithms.