Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Feb 9, 2020
Date Accepted: May 9, 2020
Process evaluation of an eHealth intervention to improve toddler’s diet: The Food4toddlers study.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Parents seek trustworthy information online to promote healthy eating for their toddlers. Such information must be perceived as relevant and easy to implement to be used.
Objective:
The aim of this paper is to conduct a process evaluation of the eHealth intervention Food4toddlers targeting parental feeding practices and toddlers’ diet and to examine possible differences in such according to education and family composition.
Methods:
A two-armed randomized controlled trial, including 298 parent-toddler dyads from Norway, was conducted in 2017. In total, 148 parents in the intervention group got access to an intervention website for 6 months. Data on website usage was retrieved from the learning management platform used (NEO). Participants’ satisfaction with the intervention was asked for in a post-intervention questionnaire. Chi-square and t-tests were used to examine differences in usage and satisfaction between education and family composition groups.
Results:
Most participants were mothers (98%), lived in two adult households (100%), and were born in Norway (89%). Mean parental age was 31.5 years (SD = 4.2). More than 85% had a university education degree and 56% had > 4 years of university education. Most (85%) intervention participants entered the website at least once (mean days of access: 7.4 (SD: 7.1)). Most parents reported the website as appropriate to the child's age and self-explanatory (86-93 %) and appreciated the interface and layout (56-63%). In total, 61% stated that they learned something new from the intervention. Those with > 4 years university education and one-child households used the intervention website more than parents with ≤ 4 years university education (8.4 vs. 5.9 days, P=.04) and households with more than one child (8.3 vs 5.8 days, P=.04), respectively.
Conclusions:
The Food4toddlers intervention website was found relevant by most of the participants intervention group, although usage of the website differed according to educational level and family composition. For eHealth interventions to be effective, intervention material such as websites must be used by the target group. Our results highlight the need of including users from different groups when developing interventions. Clinical Trial: ISRCTN92980420
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