Maternal and child protection services at home. Results from a national study

Maternal and child protection services (PMI) are French universal services providing prevention and health promotion services to parents and their newborn children up to the age of 6. They specifically offer home visitation services in order to reach families that could not be seen otherwise. This paper presents the results of a national survey describing these home visitation services and their local implantation. Sixty French departements (59%), constituting the territorial unit for the PMI answered the survey. The results point out that family reach remains a challenge for these services. Organizational issues represent the main barrier to implement and deliver home visitation with sufficient reach and quality. The services now provide home visitation based on risk factors, while the universality of services seems to be no longer guaranteed. The number of tasks that the nurses have been charged with can explain these difficulties, as well as the lack of financial and human resources.