Radomski Ashley D, Polihronis Christine, Cloutier Paula, Beaudin Kayla, Cappelli Mario
Knowledge Institute on Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) Research Institute, 401 Smyth Road, K1H 8L1, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
BMC Prim Care. 2025 Jun 9;26(1):199. doi: 10.1186/s12875-025-02869-z.
Many young children with mental health or developmental concerns go unidentified and untreated, underscoring the need for effective screening. Primary care offers unique opportunities for screening, yet rates are low. Primary care providers often cite time constraints, insufficient training, and costs as barriers to screening. Tools designed for administration by primary care providers hold promise for facilitating personalized assessments and improving communication, collaboration, and follow-up between providers and families. To improve early identification and intervention, it is crucial to understand provider-administered screening tools that align with their practical constraints.
To identify and describe the characteristics, limitations, and improvement areas of brief, multidimensional screening for young children's mental health and development, designed for administration by primary care providers.
We conducted a scoping review according to published guidelines. We searched seven electronic databases and used hand-searching strategies. We sought English-language publications on screening tools (English or French) assessing at least one mental health and one development domain in children up to 6 years, designed for administration by primary care providers in under 20 minutes. Two reviewers assessed the articles' eligibility and then extracted, charted, and summarized relevant data.
Three screening tools from six articles were included. The tools were primarily administered by physicians or nurses to children aged 2 weeks to 4 years and required minimal training to use. The tools varied in their domains (4-6), items (10-110), psychometric properties, and scoring methods, but all included indicators of delayed or at-risk children. Article limitations included study recency and lack of data related to implementation and patient outcomes.
This review described the development and evaluation of multidimensional screening tools for young children's mental health and development designed for administration by primary care providers. It found that few tools have been published. This review identifies several knowledge gaps and emphasizes the need for research on the implementation, cost-effectiveness, and comparative performance of screening tools, as well as the development and evaluation of new screening tools that suit providers' needs. Future studies should investigate how these screening tools can improve identification, clinical care, and health outcomes.
许多有心理健康或发育问题的幼儿未被识别和治疗，这凸显了有效筛查的必要性。初级保健提供了独特的筛查机会，但筛查率较低。初级保健提供者经常将时间限制、培训不足和成本视为筛查的障碍。为初级保健提供者管理而设计的工具有望促进个性化评估，并改善提供者与家庭之间的沟通、协作及后续跟进。为改善早期识别和干预，了解符合其实际限制的由提供者管理的筛查工具至关重要。
识别并描述为初级保健提供者管理而设计的针对幼儿心理健康和发育的简短多维筛查的特征、局限性及改进领域。
我们根据已发表的指南进行了一项范围综述。我们搜索了七个电子数据库并使用了手工检索策略。我们查找了关于筛查工具（英文或法文）的英文出版物，这些工具用于评估6岁以下儿童的至少一个心理健康领域和一个发育领域，且设计为由初级保健提供者在20分钟内完成管理。两名评审员评估文章的合格性，然后提取、制表并总结相关数据。
纳入了六篇文章中的三种筛查工具。这些工具主要由医生或护士对2周龄至4岁的儿童进行管理，使用时所需培训极少。这些工具在其领域（4 - 6个）、项目（10 - 110个）、心理测量特性和评分方法上各不相同，但都包括发育迟缓或有风险儿童的指标。文章的局限性包括研究的时效性以及缺乏与实施和患者结局相关的数据。
本综述描述了为初级保健提供者管理而设计的针对幼儿心理健康和发育多维筛查工具的开发与评估。发现已发表的工具很少。本综述识别了几个知识空白，并强调需要对筛查工具的实施、成本效益和比较性能进行研究，以及开发和评估适合提供者需求的新筛查工具。未来的研究应调查这些筛查工具如何改善识别、临床护理和健康结局。
