Measuring Parent and Professional Attitudes about the Individualized Family Service Plan: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary report on thedevelopment of alternate forms of an attitude scale to assess parents' and professionals' views toward the Charlotte Brasic Royeen, PhD, OTR, FAOTA, is Professor and Chair, Program in

Occupational therapists' attitudes toward family-centered care

“…When considering socialization, research supports the idea that educators are important in fostering therapists' positive attitudes toward families (Brown et al, 1997;Johnson et al, 1994;Maluccio, 1979;Royeen et al, 1996). The impact of socialization on behavior is recognized in the theory of planned behavior in the subjective norm component where individuals seeks the approval of their peer groups when engaging in behaviors.…”

“…Health professional literature reports that professionals' attitudes and beliefs are acquired through numerous experiences including their preprofessional and professional socialization, their professional education, and their adoption of the norms of their organization's culture (Brown, Humphry, & Taylor, 1997;Johnson et al, 1994;Maluccio, 1979;Royeen et al, 1996). Royeen et al contend that clinicians' attitudes influence the process of service delivery and that attitudes can change as the result of experience.…”

“…In reviewing what is known; attributes that have been consistently found in the literature to impact service providers' attitudes toward families can be delineated into three categories: (a) professional experiences, such as years of experience and current professional position (Gill, 1987(Gill, , 1993; (b) education, including preservice training and fieldwork with families of children with disabilities (Dalley, 1991 ); and (c) organizational culture (Royeen, Cromack, Degangi, & Poisson, 1996). The relationships of these three variables (professional experiences, education, and organizational culture) to pediatric occupational therapists' attitudes toward family-centered care were explored in this study.…”

“…Royeen et al (1996) devised different scales for professionals and for parents. This study used only the professional scale because parents' attitudes were not part of this study.…”

“…In this study three instruments were used to collect the data: the Professional Attitude Scale (Royeen et al, 1996),the Professional Characteristics Questionnaire, and the Family-Centered Program Rating Scale (Murphy & Lee, 1991). The Professional Attitude Scale provided information about the attitudes of the participants in response to the first research question.…”