Introduction:

the main aim of the study was to describe the current situation of Health Education (HE) programmes in primary care (PC) in Spain, and to assess the usefulness of a perinatal educational intervention in the community.

Material and methods:

We conducted an observational and descriptive study in March 2019 by analysing data collected from a a survey of health care professionals. The questionnaire was distributed through a health care professional mailing list that has 1139 subscribers, most of who are primary care paediatricians.

Results:

we collected 353 responses, 83.9% from female responders; 42.8% were submitted from the Community of Madrid, followed in frequency by Andalusia (12.2%) and Asturias (10.5%). Of all respondents, 84.1% reported working in sites that offered community HE, but only 38% participated in any such activities; 79.5% of midwives reported delivering HE, followed in frequency by nurses (77.8%). Of the respondents whose centres did not offer HE, 82.1% expressed a desire to participate in community HE projects, but many cited barriers to do so, including a lack of time (71.4%), a lack of co-workers willing to participate in these activities (48.2%) and inadequate training on how to lead group activities (39.3%). Also, 21.4% reported feeling unmotivated and 12.5% having negative experiences in the past.

Conclusion:

the vast majority of surveyed providers considered that perinatal health education was useful, highlighting that it could empower families. Respondents considered that paediatric nurses were the health professionals best suited to deliver community health education interventions.

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