Preventive Assistants in Paediatric Outpatient Clinics Evaluation of a Training Programme for Primary Prevention

The "German Network Children's Health and Environment - alliance fora sustainable future" provides since 2003 for paediatric medical assistants [1] and paediatric nurses a continuous training programme to become a "preventive medical assistant" for paediatric outpatient settings. The network evaluated from the beginning the training programmes. The aim of this study was to obtain detailed information on the pre-existing knowledge, expectations and to assess the quality of the training. The methodology includes a written questionnaire filled out by the graduates of each course session. The results show a considerable increase in professional knowledge. In conclusion, the continuous evaluation shows the high quality of the training curriculum, and helps to develop the training curriculum further. To keep this standard it is necessary to continue with the evaluations. A further step to accompany the ongoing activities scientifically should be to apply a questionnaire to the physicians, preventive assistants, the children, teenagers and their parents, to measure the direct impact for the health of children and teenagers.