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Affiliation
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School of Occupation and Leisure Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Lidcombe 1825, NSW, Australia. G.Llewellyn@fhs.usyd.edu.au |
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Abstract
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The objective of this study was to evaluate the
efficacy of a home-based intervention targeted to parents with intellectual
disability to promote child health and home safety in the preschool years. A
total of 63 parents were recruited for the study with 45 parents (40 mothers and
5 fathers) from 40 families completing the project. The research design
permitted comparison between the intervention and three alternative conditions
with all parents receiving the intervention in an alternating sequence over the
life of the project. The intervention consisted of 10 weekly lessons carried out
in the parent's home focusing on child health and home safety. The program
was adapted to suit the Australian context from the UCLA Parent--Child Health
and Wellness Project (Tymchuk, Groen, & Dolyniuk, 2000). Outcome measures
assessed parental health and safety behaviours. Standard measures included
parental health, intelligence and literacy. The intervention improved
parents' ability to recognize home dangers, to identify precautions to deal
with these dangers and resulted in a significant increase in the number of
safety precautions parents implemented in their homes with all gains being
maintained at 3 months post-intervention. Parents' health behaviours
including improved understanding of health and symptoms of illness, knowledge of
and skills needed to manage life-threatening emergencies, knowledge about
visiting the doctor, knowing when to call, what information to provide and what
questions to ask, and how to use medicines safely significantly increased.
Again, all gains were maintained 3 months post-intervention. The intervention
was effective regardless of parental health, literacy skills, and IQ. This form
of home-based intervention promotes a healthy and safe environment which is a
prerequisite to continuing parental custody. |