Abstract

The significant variability in the use of pediatric care points to a need for a greater understanding of factors that influence early childhood health care usage. Given parents' central role in child health and service use, the effects of several parental characteristics have been examined. However, little is known about the influence of general parenting behaviours on variations in service use. Aim: Using 250 parent-child dyads from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, this study examined whether parental support, structure and control would influence rates of early childhood usage for different types of health services and whether these effects would be moderated by conditions of disadvantage typically associated with poorer health and service use. Results: Greater parental support increased children's rate of non-emergency care and decreased their hospitalizations rate; however, parental support was particularly important in conditions of disadvantage. For children of parents from impoverished backgrounds, more supportive parenting was associated with higher rates of non-emergency care and visits for ear infections and acute respiratory infections. In addition, greater parental structure decreased children's rates of ear infection and acute respiratory infections and tended to decrease children's rate of emergency room visit. Greater parental control decreased children's rate of emergency room visits and tended to decrease non-emergency care. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of considering broad parenting behaviours when examining variations in health and health care utilization in early childhood and it provides the theoretical basis for developing interventions aimed at parenting in high risk populations.