Understanding Training Needs in Pediatric Feeding for Allied Health Professionals: An Australian Perspective

Purpose: Clinician experience and confidence can negatively impact pediatric feeding service availability, but limited research has investigated what training allied health professionals (AHPs) need to increase these factors. This study developed and distributed a survey investigating Australian AHPs' self-reported confidence and anxiousness, training needs, factors impacting training access, and training preferences. Method: This study was conducted over two phases. Phase 1 involved devel-opment and refinement of the survey, and Phase 2 involved distribution to Australian AHPs. Questions pertained to general demographics, feeding experi-ence, feeding confidence and skills perception, and training needs. The questions were composed of multiple-choice, Likert scale, and short-response options. Results: Overall, 198 complete responses were received. Participants reported significantly lower confidence and higher anxiousness working with infants com-pared to older children (p < .01). Increased frequency of service provision pre-dicted higher self-reported confidence and lower anxiousness (p < .01). Practi-cal training opportunities including case discussion, videos, and clinical feed-back were preferred. Access facilitators were online, on-demand training; how-ever, respondents reported preferring hands-on training opportunities. Common barriers included cost, time, competing professional development priorities, and distance/travel. Conclusions: Findings have highlighted that recency and frequency of practice impact self-reported confidence and anxiousness, and that AHPs self-report lowest confidence and highest anxiety working with infants compared to older age groups. Overall, the findings highlight the need for flexible, practical, and remotely accessible training opportunities, as well as the need for access to regular clinical supervision and a pediatric feeding caseload.