AIM: This study aimed to investigate Child Health Services nurses' experiences of adjusting their parental support in response to parents' loneliness and concerns about their parenthood during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DESIGN: The study has a cross-sectional design based on self-reported data.

METHOD: The study is based on a study-specific questionnaire created by the research group and took place in the context of the Child Health Services in two regions of Sweden. All 180 eligible child health nurses were invited to answer the questionnaire, and 130 nurses answered the questionnaire. The questions with fixed answers were analysed using descriptive statistics, and those with free-text answers were analysed using content analysis.

RESULTS: The nurses described parental support as having partly changed during the pandemic; the nurses also described a lack of parental support in groups and how the group-based parental support was replaced with individual targeted visits. Further, the nurses stated that, in encounters with the Child Health Services during the pandemic, parents broadly expressed feeling lonely and isolated in their parenthood.

CONCLUSION: The results of this study can be used to develop parental support in child health services beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The results shed light on the need for more person-centred parental support at the Child Health Services to avoid parents' feelings of loneliness on both an individual and a group level. The great importance of parenting support in groups highlights the significance of developing this form of parental support in Child Health Services to facilitate parents' feeling secure in their parenting and thus promote the child's health.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: No patient or public contribution.