Evaluating a Knowledge Translation Tool for Parents

Summary

Diarrhea and vomiting in children is a common reason to visit the emergency department. There has been a lot of research on how best to treat children with diarrhea and vomiting who visit the emergency department; however, the care children receive varies by healthcare provider and across hospitals. Additionally, there are things parents can do at home to help manage childhood diarrhea and vomiting and potentially avoid a trip to the emergency department. This shows an urgent need for knowledge translation, that is, efforts to align research knowledge and healthcare practice. Actively involving parents in healthcare decisions has the potential to bridge this gap; however, there is little research on the best ways to communicate complex health information to parents of sick kids. In 2013, a national needs assessment was conducted with parents seeking care for their kids in general emergency departments (trekk.ca). This survey showed that 39% of parents looked for information about their child's health prior to coming to the emergency department and that 44% of these parents looked for this information on the internet. This means that the development and evaluation of digital tools to give parents timely and effective child health information has the potential to reduce unnecessary emergency department visits, empower parents in health decision-making, and ultimately improve child health outcomes. In this project, parents will be actively involved in the evaluation of a digital tool, a whiteboard animation video, designed to communicate the best research evidence on the treatment and management of vomiting and diarrhea in children. In this pilot trial, parents in two emergency departments will be randomized to view the video or a sham video, and then provide quantitative and qualitative data on the potential effectiveness of the video, the perceived benefit and value of the knowledge translation intervention for pediatric vomiting and diarrhea, the feasibility of using iPads and an electronic data collection platform to conduct research with this population, the time required to complete data collection, and parents' willingness to participate in future, similar research.

Conditions

• Acute Gastroenteritis
• Pediatric ALL
• Knowledge Translation

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Whiteboard animation video

Developed via qualitative research with parents of children with acute gastroenteritis.

BEHAVIORAL

Regular video

Developed by CDC

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Stollery Children's Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Alberta

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Andre Grace, PhD · University of Alberta (Supervisor)

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

QUADRUPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-11-30

Primary Completion

2018-03-10

Completion

2018-03-10

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations