| Project summaryDutch preventive adolescent health care is delivered by teams of school physicians/nurses, health educators and epidemiologists of Municipal Health Services ("GGD's") in cooperation with schools. "JGZ" interventions are individual- as well as community-oriented. The Dutch Public Health Platform ("JGZ" section) recently advocated an inventory of the health of each child at four developmental stages (e.g. start of secondary school at age 12 and at the exit of compulsory education at age 16). This should be the basis for (individual and group-level) health profiles and for individual targeted care.Questionnaires are increasingly applied by GGD's for group-level health profiles, but only incidentally for individual risk assessment. However, due to scarce resources only few GGD's can offer the customary face-to-face consultations ("PGO's") to all adolescents.In this project a comprehensive low-cost Internet-based strategy will be developed consisting of computer-assisted interactive (individual, group-level) health assessments, computer-tailored health education/referrals, integrated in routine JGZ care. From the beginning simple prototypes will be tested by two GGD's. Youth, parents, schools and (JGZ) experts will be involved. Privacy protection will be guaranteed. The final prototype will be implemented and evaluated at two GGD's. As the system will be adaptable, it allows for implementation in the proposed future nation-wide standard practice (12/16 years).- Progress:We investigated feasibility, validity (operational equivalence) and students' appraisal of a routine health questionnaire via Internet (two different interfaces) versus paper&pencil (P&P) in secondary schools. We randomly assigned 591 students to 1 of the 2 Internet interfaces (multiple questions versus one question per screen) and P&P. We found that health assessment via Internet was feasible. The questionnaire's health scores were generally similar regardless of the mode of administration. Students rated the administration of the questionnaire via Internet more favourably than paper&pencil method. |
