Family-Centered practice in a Brazilian rehabilitation network service.

Background: Family-centered practice (FCP) is widely accepted as a best practice in pediatric rehabilitation. However, its implementation in Brazil is incipient, and systematic documentation of the extent to which it has been achieved is not available.

Objectives: To determine parents' and service providers' perceptions of family-centeredness and specific areas in need of improvement in four rehabilitation hospitals.

Methods: A total of 107 caregivers and 89 service providers responded to the Measure of Processes of Care-20 (MPOC-20) and the Measure of Processes of Care for Service providers (MPOC-SP), respectively. The MPOC questionnaires evaluate FCP from the point of view of parents and rehabilitation professionals. Domain scores within each questionnaire were compared with Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. MPOC items with low scores (from 1-4 out of 7 by 33% or more of respondents) were considered to indicate weaknesses in service delivery.

Results: Median MPOC-20 scores varied from 5.2 (4.7, 5.8) (Providing General Information) to 7.0 (6.0, 7.0) (Enabling and Partnership). The Providing General Information scores were significantly lower than those of other domains (p <  0.003). The MPOC-SP scores varied from 4.8 (4.0, 5.8) (Providing General Information) to 6.1 (5.8, 6.6) (Treating People Respectfully). Scores for Treating People Respectfully were significantly higher (p <  0.0001) and Providing General Information scores significantly lower (p <  0.0001) than those of the other domains. Most items with high percentages of low scores were from the domain Providing General Information.

Conclusion: Except for Providing General Information, the results indicated that services implement FCP "to a fairly great extent," comparing favorably to international data. Provision of information can be improved.