Background: All parents in Sweden are invited to child health service (CHS) parental groups, however only 49% of the\nfamilies participate. The way the parental groups are managed has been shown to be of importance for how parents\nexperience the support and CHS nurses describe feeling insecure when running the groups. Lack of facilitation,\nstructure and leadership might jeopardise the potential benefit of such support groups. This study describes CHS\nnursesââ?¬â?¢ experiences of how a course in group leadership affected the way they ran their parental groups.\nMethods: A course in group leadership given to 56 CHS nurses was evaluated in focus group interviews 5ââ?¬â??8 months\nafter the course.\nResults: The nurses felt strengthened in their group leader role and changed their leadership methods. The\nmanagement of parental groups was after the course perceived as an important work task and the nurses included\ntime for planning, preparation and evaluation, which they felt improved their parental groups. Parental participation in\nthe activities in the group had become a key issue and they used their new exercises and tools to increase this. They\nexpressed feeling more confident and relaxed in their role as group leaders and felt that they could adapt their\nleadership to the needs of the parents.\nConclusions: Specific training might strengthen the CHS nurses in their group leader role and give them new\nmotivation to fulfil their work with parental groups
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