Home Health Care Providers’ Readiness to Care for Children and Youth With Complex Medical Conditions: Protocol for a Scoping Review

TL;DR

This study explores how prepared home care providers are to care for children with complex medical needs, aiming to improve training and support systems.

Contribution

The study introduces a scoping review protocol to assess home care providers' readiness to care for children with complex medical conditions.

Findings

Home care providers often feel unprepared due to insufficient pediatric training and system-level gaps.

The review will identify factors influencing provider readiness and strategies to enhance their capacity for safe, coordinated care.

Findings will inform training, workforce development, and policy strategies for pediatric home care.

Abstract

Children and youth with medical complexities have chronic conditions, functional limitations, and extensive care needs requiring significant family involvement and frequent health service use. Pediatric medicine has improved their life expectancy, shifting care from acute to home settings. In Ontario, home care is publicly funded and includes nursing, therapy, personal support, and allied health services. However, families continue providing the bulk of care, often at great personal costs. As care complexity increases, so does the reliance on home care providers. Yet, many providers report feeling unprepared due to insufficient pediatric training, lack of supervision, and system-level gaps. Here we applied Weiner’s theory of organizational readiness for change, framing readiness as a shared psychological state involving commitment to and confidence in delivering change, thus helping conceptualize provider readiness as encompassing individual competence, contextual supports, and motivational factors. Despite its importance, provider readiness in pediatric home care remains poorly understood.

We examine how home care providers perceive their readiness to care for children and youth with medical complexities, factors influencing readiness, and strategies proposed to enhance their capacity to deliver safe, coordinated, developmentally appropriate home care.

This scoping review follows the updated Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methodology and PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines. Articles focusing on (1) children and youth with medical complexities aged 0-18 years receiving home care and (2) with at least one chronic medical condition, and (3) paid home care providers will be searched on MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health, PsycINFO, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Gray literature will be searched on Google Scholar and ProQuest (Dissertations & Theses). A 2-stage screening process will be conducted in Covidence, involving title and abstract screening and full-text review by 2 independent reviewers. Data will be extracted using predefined charting categories and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

As of May 2025, screening is underway. The review will map key themes across provider types, care settings, and training contexts and identify factors influencing provider readiness including access to training, system navigation supports, and workplace role clarity and chart recommendations or strategies to enhance readiness. Gaps in pediatric-specific competencies and workforce preparation may also emerge.

This review will synthesize current evidence on provider readiness in pediatric home care, identifying strengths, challenges, and development areas. Findings will inform provider training, workforce development, and policy strategies to ensure children and youth with medical complexities receive safe, coordinated, effective home care. A deeper understanding of provider readiness will support more sustainable home care systems and improve outcomes for children and youth with medical complexities and their families.

OSF Registries 10.17605/OSF.IO/N4FAJ; https://osf.io/n4faj

PRR1-10.2196/76796