Participation of parents and children in guideline development for Dutch Youth Health Care: abstract

Background and aims. nvolving parents and children in guideline development is important because parents and children have important knowledge from experience. Involvement of parents and children will increase the quality and value of guidelines and can enhance implementation. Methods. Youth Health Caren guidelines in the Netherlands are developed according to the principles of evidence-based medicine. Recommendations can be evidence based, or, when an evidence base is lacking, practice based according to experts. Next to that, input of parents and children are gathered in various ways (open, targeted) and at various moments during the guideline development process. Results. We will present how and when parents and children are involved in the development process of guidelines for Dutch Youth Health Care and how this led to changes of recommendation. We will discuss the benefits of involving parents and children, which methods we used for conducting a consultation, and whether they were successful and why. Conclusions. Parents and children can make meaningful contributions to guideline development. However, not all methods yield relevant results. Statement or main question. How and when can parents and children be involved in the guideline development process?