Campus Location

Dallas Campus (Online)

Date of Award

3-2021

Document Type

DNP Project

Department

Nursing

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Committee Chair or Primary Advisor

Tonya Sawyer-McGee

Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor

Tonya Hartjes

Third Committee Member or Committee Reader

Molly Kuhle

Abstract

The benefits of pediatric vision screening for very young children is not a new concept. However, not all children receive this valuable preventative intervention, or they do not receive an evaluation or examination to rule out or treat common visual refractive errors. This Doctor of Nursing Project sought to identify factors that impact a parent’s failure to follow up on recommendations for further evaluation or treatment following their child’s failed vision screening. The project utilized a phenomenological study to assess Migrant and Seasonal Head Start parents’ perceptions about their perceptions of the need for preventative vision screening and care. Three Migrant and Seasonal Head Start parents whose children were enrolled in the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start program from May to June of 2019 completed a telephone survey to assess their knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions about visual acuity, access to care, and barriers to care. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data from the questionnaires. The key findings from the study were that most parents are knowledgeable about how and when to access vision care or treatment, but parents do not understand that failure to identify and treat visual acuity issues could negatively impact further education and health outcomes. Therefore, more efforts are needed from healthcare providers and Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs to provide parent education that addresses the correlation between vision acuity and growth and development.

Keywords: vision screening, refractive errors, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, Head Start, pediatric vision screening, parental perceptions, poverty, barriers, vision acuity, healthcare utilization

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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