Objective: To study factors of importance for participation in parental education within routine child health care.
Design: All parents of children born during 1 year were invited by the district nurse to participate in parental education; their participation during the infant year was registered.
Setting: Catchment area of two health centres in Växjö, Sweden.
Subjects: 221 infants and their parents.
Main outcome measures: Number of educational sessions for mothers and fathers.
Results: 63% of mothers and 20% of fathers attended at least one session. These mothers attended a mean of 5.7 (SD 2.2) sessions and these fathers a mean of 2.8 (SD 2.3) sessions. Logistic regression analyses showed that the only variable of significance for participation was being a first-time parent (odds ratio 3.9 for the mothers and 3.7 for the fathers). Odds ratios above 2.0 (non-significant) were found for married mothers and Swedish mothers, as well as for Swedish fathers.
Conclusion: It is still a considerable problem to get certain groups involved in routine parental education in Swedish child healthcare programmes.