Background: Family Navigation (FN) is an evidence-based care management intervention designed to reduce disparities in access to care by providing families with individually tailored support and care coordination. Early data suggest FN is effective, but effectiveness is significantly influenced by both contextual (e.g. setting) and individual (e.g., ethnicity) variables. To better understand how FN could be tailored to address this variability in effectiveness, we set forth to explore proposed adaptations to FN by both navigators and families who received FN.

Methods: This study was a nested qualitative study set within a larger randomized clinical trial of FN to improve access to autism diagnostic services in urban pediatric primary care practices in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut serving low-income, racial and ethnic minority families. Following FN implementation, key informant interviews were conducted based on the Framework for Reporting Adaptations and Modifications-Expanded (FRAME) with a purposeful sample of parents of children who received FN (n = 21) and navigators (n = 7). Interviews were transcribed verbatim and were coded using framework-guided rapid analysis to categorize proposed adaptations to FN.

Results: Parents and navigators proposed 38 adaptations in four domains: 1) content of the intervention (n = 18), 2) context of the intervention (n = 10), 3) training and evaluation (n = 6), and 4) implementation and scale-up (n = 4). The most frequently endorsed adaptation recommendations focused on content (e.g., lengthening FN, providing parents with additional education on autism and parenting children with autism) and implementation (e.g., increasing access to navigation). Although probes targeted critical feedback, parents and navigators were overwhelmingly positive about FN.

Conclusions: This study builds upon prior FN effectiveness and implementation research by providing concrete areas for adaptation and refinement of the intervention. Recommendations by parents and navigators have the potential to inform improvement of existing navigation programs and development of new programs in similarly underserved populations. These findings are critical as adaptation (cultural and otherwise) is an important principle in the field of health equity. Ultimately, adaptations will need to be tested to determine clinical and implementation effectiveness.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, registration number NCT02359084, February 9, 2015.