Effectiveness of pediatric developmental screening tests in the assessment of child developmental delays

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) questionnaire and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) at facilitating pediatric residents' child development knowledge and as intervention screening tools for recognizing developmental concerns in children 4 months to 5 years of age.

Design: Quasi-experimental designs: Resident developmental knowledge; pre-test post-test nonequivalent group design. Resident intervention referrals; separate-sample pre-test post-test design.

Setting: Hughes Spalding Children's Hospital Primary Care Clinic (intervention), an urban setting training hospital, and primary care pediatric offices in the community (control), both in Atlanta, GA, from May 2005 to June 2006.

Participants: Resident developmental knowledge; 54 pediatric residents from Emory University School of Medicine; adequate information was available for 42 residents (78%), 17 (intense), 16 (moderate), and 9 (control). Resident referrals; 282 pre-intervention and 436 post-intervention patient charts.

Intervention: Resident developmental knowledge assessed via 15-item multiple-choice questionnaire with items from the Pediatric Review and Education Program Outcome Measures. Resident referrals were primarily assessed via PEDS questionnaire (10-items), and secondarily via the ASQ.

Results: Resident developmental knowledge; no significant difference across intervention groups over time. Resident referrals; significant increase in developmental referrals (÷2 = 5.88, p < .01), no significant change across other referral types.

Conclusions: Development of intensive training models may need to be used in conjunction with use of screening tools to improve developmental knowledge. If the association estimated in our study is causal, screening tools may be useful for identifying less overt symptoms relevant to child developmental concerns.