This study assesses the developmental outcomes of children at age 2 years who participated in an intensive home visiting programme called the Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home visiting programme (MECSH), using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, Third Edition
(ASQ-3) tool, and compares these outcomes with those of childrenreceiving a standard health visiting service. The research also examines the significance of the number of home visits, by the Health Visitor (HV), on these developmental outcomes. The intensive
programme provided frequent, support visits by trained health professionals, focusing on enhancing parental skills and child development from birth to age 2 years. A quantitative methodology was employed, involving 97 families engaged in MECSH and 740 families receiving a standard health visiting service who were born in 2018 and measured in 2020. Developmental assessments using the ASQ-3 questionnaire covered 5 key domains in communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal-social skills. Data were analysed to compare developmental scores and to assess the impact of the number of home visits on these scores. Key findings indicate that 82% of non- MECSH children and 75% of MECSH children were meeting developmental milestones in all 5 domains. Highlighting that MECSH children were doing less well than the Non-MECSH children. The MECSH cohort scored lower in all domains except gross motor. However, the two groups compared favourably in the communication domain with scores of 88% and 87% respectively. For those children on the MECSH programme they received only 58% of the scheduled visits with a lower percentage in those families who did not complete the programme (53%). However, the frequency of visits did not positively correlate with better developmental outcomes, in all other domains of development, suggesting that more intensive support does not necessarily lead to more substantial benefits, across all areas of development.
