[Family midwives and nurses in early childhood intervention : Have they been successful?].

BACKGROUND: The federal initiative promotes support offered by family midwives and nurses in early childhood intervention. So far, the initiative has contributed to the fact that many municipalities in Germany provide support to burdened families with young children in order to help them cope with everyday life and child-raising issues. This investigation aims to provide scientific insight into the question of if (and how) families benefit from the support of family midwives and nurses.

METHODS: To answer this question, the National Centre on Early Prevention conducted an online survey. In a two-wave longitudinal study, 190 family midwives and nurses took part in the survey and reported data concerning resources, stresses, strains and improvements of 937 families.

RESULTS: Families with relatively higher resources and lower stresses benefit from the support of family midwives and nurses, whereas families under more extreme stresses and strains do not seem to benefit to the same extent. Nevertheless, for a majority of the latter families, midwife and nurse services were still beneficial, as the professionals were able to arrange more adequate, i. e. more intense, support offered by the child and youth welfare system in Germany.

DISCUSSION: Families in stressful living circumstances seem to benefit from family midwife and nurse services. However, further research proposals (i. e. CTs) are requested, whereby the appropriate outcome variables to measure the effect should be selected.