Parents' and Service Providers' Perceptions of the Family-Centredness of Children's Rehabilitation Services

Abstract

Little is known about the extent to which children's rehabilitation services are delivered in a family-centred manner. In this article we report the results of two province-wide surveys, one conducted with 436 parents and the other with 309 service providers, in which we examined the level of family-centred service in children's rehabilitation centres in Ontario, Canada. In one survey we employed the Measure of Processes of Care (MPOC), a measure of parents' perceptions of the behaviours of service providers, and in the other we employed the Family-Centered Program Rating Scale (FamPRS), a measure of service providers' perceptions of the importance and occurrence of family-centred service. The results of the two surveys were very similar. The responses of both parents and service providers indicated that centres were doing well with respect to the interpersonal aspects of service delivery, but that the provision of information was a relatively weak area. The implications of the findings and the utility of the two measurement tools are discussed, as are directions for future research.