Department of Special and Gifted Education, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
Curriculum & Methods of Instruction, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
PLoS One. 2024 Apr 4;19(4):e0301094. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301094. eCollection 2024.
The role of parents in supporting early intervention for young children with disabilities is critical. Indeed, models of family centered care (FCC), which emphasis strong partnerships between health professionals and families in disability health services delivery are now widely associated with best practice. While FCC is consistently argued to be an appropriate model for disability service delivery, its utilization is limited primarily to Western countries such as Australia and the United States. Countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have prioritized early childhood development and are thus in search of best practices for delivery of early intervention for children and their families.
The aim of this study was to explore the appropriateness of the FCC model in disability service delivery in the UAE. This study was conducted from the perspectives of health professionals who are involved in disability diagnosis, referral and ongoing support for families and children with disabilities.
A total of 150 health professionals were recruited from health facilities, rehabilitation centers and schools in the Emirates of Abu Dhabi. The 27-item Measure of Process of Care for Service Providers (MPOC-SP) was used for data collection. The data were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to confirm applicability of the model to this context. Multivariate analysis of variance and moderation analysis were also conducted, to ascertain the relationship between participants' satisfaction levels with their ability to diagnose, refer and provide on-going support and their likelihood of practicing key components of FCC.
Computation of confirmatory factor analysis provided support for applicability of the MPOC-SP in the UAE context. Further inspection showed moderate to large correlations between the four components of FCC measured by MPOC-SP, providing further support for utilization of FCC in disability health service delivery in the UAE.
The study concludes with a call to policymakers in the UAE to consider developing disability health policy based on key components of FCC. This could be supplemented by development of training modules on FCC to upskill health professionals involved in disability diagnosis and rehabilitation.
父母在支持残疾幼儿早期干预方面的作用至关重要。事实上，以卫生专业人员与残疾健康服务提供者之间建立强有力伙伴关系为重点的以家庭为中心的照护模式（FCC），如今与最佳实践广泛相关。尽管 FCC 一直被认为是残疾服务提供的合适模式，但它的使用主要局限于澳大利亚和美国等西方国家。阿联酋等国优先重视儿童早期发展，因此正在寻找为儿童及其家庭提供早期干预的最佳实践。
本研究旨在探讨在阿联酋残疾服务提供中采用 FCC 模式的适宜性。本研究从参与残疾诊断、转介和为残疾家庭和儿童提供持续支持的卫生专业人员的角度进行。
从阿布扎比酋长国的卫生机构、康复中心和学校招募了 150 名卫生专业人员。使用服务提供者关怀过程测量工具（MPOC-SP）中的 27 项内容进行数据收集。对数据进行验证性因子分析，以确认该模型在这一背景下的适用性。还进行了多元方差分析和调节分析，以确定参与者对自身诊断、转介和持续提供支持能力的满意度水平与他们实践 FCC 关键组成部分的可能性之间的关系。
验证性因子分析的计算结果为 MPOC-SP 在阿联酋背景下的适用性提供了支持。进一步检查表明，MPOC-SP 测量的 FCC 的四个组成部分之间存在中等至较大的相关性，进一步支持在阿联酋残疾健康服务提供中采用 FCC。
研究最后呼吁阿联酋的政策制定者考虑制定基于 FCC 关键组成部分的残疾健康政策。这可以通过制定关于 FCC 的培训模块来补充，以提高参与残疾诊断和康复的卫生专业人员的技能。
