None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
In Australia, 60% of adults have low health literacy. This means that they lack the skills needed to perform health tasks (such as reading medicine labels) and making health decisions (such as deciding when to access the Emergency Department). Having low health literacy puts people at greater risk of illness and death, and results in increased healthcare costs. When parents have low health literacy, their children have poorer health and are more likely to visit the emergency department and to be admitted to the hospital. Our team has developed a health literacy program to improve parents’ health literacy skills, known as ‘Parenting+’. In 2018, we delivered the Parenting+ program to 73 new parents in western Sydney. We found that the program could be successfully delivered by trained nurses in existing New Parents Groups, including groups for disadvantaged parents. We will now conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact Parenting+ has on parents’ health literacy, health outcomes and use of health services compared to standard parenting groups.
Interventions
Parenting+ is an innovative health literacy intervention for new parents that is built on a model of health literacy skill development shown to increase health literacy in disadvantaged and culturally-diverse adults in Australia. Parenting+ is a free 4-6 week health literacy program that embeds functional health literacy skills into parenting topics of interest, identified from our previous work, in four core content areas:
Topic 1: Child development
Topic 2: Healthy eating and physical activi
Parenting+ is an innovative health literacy intervention for new parents that is built on a model of health literacy skill development shown to increase health literacy in disadvantaged and culturally-diverse adults in Australia. Parenting+ is a free 4-6 week health literacy program that embeds functional health literacy skills into parenting topics of interest, identified from our previous work, in four core content areas: Topic 1: Child development Topic 2: Healthy eating and physical activity Topic 3: Adjusting for parenthood Topic 4: First aid, medicine and immunization To develop transferable health literacy skills, three core skill sets are included across all topics: 1) skills to access and critically appraise health information; 2) skills for shared decision making and 3) skills for implementing health behaviours. The Parenting+ program will be delivered face-to-face or online in small groups of approximately 6-8 participants by trained facilitators (e.g. Child and Family Health Nurses; bilingual community educators) in community settings (for example, in a community health centre). The Parenting+ program will be delivered as 4 x 2-hour parenting skill development sessions over a 4-6 week period depending upon participant availability. Sessions will include presentations on parenting skills, short video demonstrations, interactive exercises, group discussions, and question-answer. Parenting+ facilitator training: All Parenting+ facilitators will attend a half-day training session led by the University of Sydney. Training will address adult education theory and practice; behaviour change techniques and health literacy skill development. Training will be conducted at in-person workshops of up to 12 facilitators at least two weeks prior to the first participant enrollment at the site. The training will include the Parenting+ module presentation slides, short videos, and interactive question-answer session. The adherence to the training will be monitored by a session attendance checklist. Assessment of adherence/fidelity: Facilitators' actions and content covered in each session will be recorded in itemised checklists and logs. Investigators will conduct structured observation of Parenting+ program for content analysis.
Sponsors
The University of Sydney
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
16 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Parent with a child between 4-26 weeks at time of recruitment.
Exclusion criteria
Parents with a child aged >26 weeks. Parents do not provide consent to participate
Outcome results
None listed