The Development, Evaluation and Dissemination of a Training Programme for General Practitioners in Evidence-Based Parent Consultation Skills

Abstract

General practitioners (GPs) and family doctors are usually the first point of professional contact for parents concerned about their children's behaviour and they are often asked for advice on the management of behavioural and emotional problems. The training of GPs to provide effective early intervention is an important issue in the prevention of child and adolescent mental health problems. This paper describes the development, evaluation and subsequent wide-scale implementation of a tailored training programme to prepare GPs to provide consultative advice and support to parents of children from birth to mid-adolescence. Primary care training in the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program was provided to 331 GPs in Queensland, Australia. Participation in a brief focused training course was associated with significant improvement in practitioners' consultation skills, greater satisfaction with their consultations and high levels of participant satisfaction with the training provided. The implications of this experience for population - level approaches to prevention of child and adolescent behaviour problems are discussed.