Samenvatting

Background Single session email consultations in web-based parenting support may be
used for a variety of reasons. Parents may be looking for information on developmental
needs of children, for suggestions to improve their parenting skills, or for referrals to
helpful resources. The way the practitioner meets the needs of parents, choosing a shortterm
and text-based approach, has not been analyzed up till now.
Objective To determine if and how practitioner response in single session email consultation
matches the need of parents.
Method A content analysis of single session email consultations (129 questions; 5,997
response sentences) was conducted. Three perspectives on the parent–practitioner communication
were distinguished to assess the match between parenting questions and consultations,
i.e., the expert oriented, parent oriented and context oriented perspective.
Results The parent oriented type is the dominant paradigm in requesting and providing
email consultations, with which the other types may be combined. Most consultations
showed a mixed perspective with the use of a limited amount of techniques within each
perspective. Correlations between the practitioner’s approach and parental expectancies
were weak.
Conclusions Professionals have a broad approach to email consultation, offering advice
of different perspectives, rather than restricting the advice in order to match a prevalent
parental need. All proposed textual techniques were observed in email consultations,
providing evidence of their feasibility. Since practice of email consultations is relatively
new, practitioners may benefit from the proposed systematic approach to writing email
consultations, identifying parental need and permitting the use of professional techniques.