Validation of the Swedish version of the safe environment for every kid (SEEK) parent screening questionnaire

BACKGROUND: Psychosocial risk factors in the home may impair children’s health and development and increase the risk of maltreatment. The Safe Environment for Every Kid (SEEK) model was developed to provide pediatric primary care professionals with a structured way to identify common psychosocial problems. The SEEK model includes use of the Parent Screening Questionnaire (SEEK-PSQ) at routine preventive child health visits, discussion with parents about their responses and, when indicated, referral to relevant services. The SEEK-PSQ has not previously been available in Swedish. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of an adapted Swedish version of the SEEK-PSQ (PSQ-S). METHODS: This study is part of a cluster-randomised controlled trial of SEEK in the Swedish child health services. To validate the PSQ-S, parents (n = 852) with children 0–18 months of age were invited to complete a survey including the PSQ-S as well as evidence-based standardized instruments for the targeted psychosocial risk factors: economic worries, depressive symptoms, parental stress, alcohol misuse and intimate partner violence (IPV). Baseline data from 611 (72%) parents were analysed regarding sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for each risk factor. RESULTS: As a whole, the PSQ-S had a sensitivity of 93%, specificity of 52%, PPV of 67% and NPV of 87%. For mothers and fathers combined, sensitivity was 80% for economic worries, 89% for depressive symptoms, 78% for parental stress, 47% for intimate partner violence (IPV) and 70% for alcohol misuse. Specificity was highest for IPV and alcohol misuse (91%) and lowest for depressive symptoms (64%). NPV values were high (81–99%) and PPV values were low to moderate (22–69%) for the targeted problems. Sensitivity was higher for mothers compared to fathers for economic worries, depressive symptoms and IPV. This difference was particularly evident for IPV (52% for mothers, 27% for fathers). CONCLUSION: The SEEK-PSQ-S demonstrated good psychometric properties for identifying economic worries, depressive symptoms, parental stress and alcohol misuse but low sensitivity for IPV. The PSQ-S as a whole showed high sensitivity and NPV, indicating that most parents with or without the targeted psychosocial risk factors were correctly identified. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN registry, study record 14,429,952 (10.1186/ISRCTN14429952) Registration date 27/05/2020. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-16792-4.