Predictive nursing: the baby and parents.

Abstract

Predictive nursing as a health care strategy is not entirely new. What is new and emerging are means of sharpening our assessments of the events and conditions that support health, as well as specific models engaging the individual in assessing and altering or maintaining his position on the health continuum. This study has been shared with the readers to provide an encouraging direction toward new modes of health care delivery. We believe it is the most encouraging strategy for assisting families in promoting optimal health of infants from a very early point in the infant's life. The assessment techniques discussed in this paper relate to methods of identifying individual behavior patterns of newborn infants, behavioral interaction patterns of parents and infants during the early months and years of life, and the parents' perception of the infant. All of these measures are now being tested by the Nursing Child Assessment Project staff and will result in a systematic format of screening and assessing infants and families "at risk". With current knowledge, astoundingly correct predictions about cognitive development and achievement at school age of groups of children can be made with information about the mother's levels of education and the events of the perinatal periods. The measures discussed in this article concerning the infants' behavior, parent-child interaction, and the parents' perception of the child are factors which will go beyond our present ability to identify potential problems early. Predictive nursing of the infant and young child is our eventual goal. This means going a step beyond the current level of practice by beginning to systematically identify the proneness of individuals to good or bad health outcomes--specifically, the proneness of children to have developmental delays or problems--and to then provide a meaningful type of intervention before the developmental problem occurs.