CONNECT Survey

In collaboration with parents* and parent leaders from a wide variety of communities across the U.S., Reach Out and Read has developed and validated the CONNECT Survey, which measures the parent-clinician relationship during routine pediatric visits. Use of this survey in clinics has strongly indicated that Reach Out and Read improves the parent-clinician relationship.

*A note on terminology: At Reach Out and Read, we appreciate and understand that children can fall under the care of any number of adults: parents, grandparents, extended family, foster parents, and many more. Within this webpage, we will use the term “parent” to mean any adult figure responsible for the consistent care and wellbeing of the child.

What is the CONNECT Survey?

Co-created by parents for parents, the CONNECT Survey was developed in partnership with Reach Out and Read and the Institute for Child Success (ICS) to gain insights into the parent/caregiver relationship during routine pediatric visits. Based on input from what matters most to parents, the aim of the CONNECT study is to accurately reflect and measure what parents value within a well-child visit.

To learn more about why we developed the CONNECT Survey, follow this link.

Survey Findings

Results from our validation study provide strong evidence of the CONNECT Survey’s reliability, validity, and practical utility in measuring parent-clinician relationship quality during pediatric well-child visits.

  • Reliability: The survey demonstrated excellent internal consistency with inter-item correlations. These findings confirm that the items cohesively measure a single underlying construct — relational quality. However, the strength of these correlations suggests potential redundancy across some items, which could be considered in future refinements.
  • Construct Validity: Established evidence confirms that the CONNECT Survey measures a single underlying construct: the caregiver–provider relationship quality.
  • Convergent Validity: Demonstrated through statistically significant correlations between the CONNECT Survey and items from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) and Press Ganey surveys, including caregiver-reported respect, communication, and likelihood to recommend.
  • Concurrent Validity: Supported by findings from ordinal logistic regression models.

    • Parents from clinics delivering Reach Out and Read with high-quality were 46% more likely to report a higher average score than parents from other clinics. This strongly indicates that the Reach Out and Read model improves the parent-clinician relationship.
  • Measurement Invariance: Analyses indicate significant subgroup differences across race/ethnicity, insurance status, and child age. These findings suggest that the CONNECT Survey is sensitive to disparities in caregiver/provider relationships and makes it a valuable tool for quality monitoring and equity-oriented improvement efforts.

If you would like more information on this process, you can download the full report here.