Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2024 Jun 3;19(6):e0304707. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304707. eCollection 2024.
Parental feeding practices (PFPs) play a key role in fostering preschoolers' dietary habits and in mitigating the risk of childhood obesity. Nevertheless, parents often employ inappropriate feeding practices, leading to children's potential nutrition-related issues. Thus, research is needed to inform interventions that focus on optimizing feeding practices.
This protocol describes the evaluation of a novel intervention-Empowering Parents to Optimize Feeding Practices (EPO-Feeding Program). The program will be evaluated with a two-arm feasibility randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Yangzhou, China. The program includes four weekly group-based training sessions led by healthcare professionals for parents of preschool children. The intervention incorporates sessions, group discussions, motivational interviewing, and supplementary materials (e.g., key messages and educational videos) aimed at enhancing parents' knowledge, skills, and behaviours related to feeding practices. The primary outcomes include i) implementation feasibility, primarily assessed through retention rates; and ii) program acceptability through a survey and qualitative process evaluation. Secondary outcomes encompass the potential impacts on i) PFPs, ii) parental perception of child weight (PPCW), iii) parenting sense of competence, iv) children's eating behaviours, and v) child weight status. Quantitative analyses include descriptive estimates for evaluating the feasibility and linear mixed regression analysis for testing the potential effects. Qualitative valuation will use thematic framework analysis.
If this study shows this program to be feasible to implement and acceptable to parents, it will be used to inform a fully powered trial to determine its effectiveness. The research will also help inform policy and practices in the context of child nutrition promotion, particularly regarding implementing group-based training sessions by healthcare providers in similar settings.
Clinicaltrials.gov, Protocol #NCT06181773, 20/11/2023.
父母的喂养行为（PFPs）在培养学龄前儿童的饮食习惯和减轻儿童肥胖风险方面起着关键作用。然而，父母经常采用不适当的喂养行为，导致儿童潜在的营养问题。因此，需要研究为优化喂养行为的干预措施提供信息。
本方案描述了对一种新干预措施的评估——赋权父母优化喂养行为（EPO-喂养计划）。该计划将在中国扬州进行一项两臂可行性随机对照试验（RCT）进行评估。该计划包括四节每周一次的基于小组的培训课程，由医疗保健专业人员为学龄前儿童的父母提供。干预措施包括课程、小组讨论、动机访谈和补充材料（例如关键信息和教育视频），旨在增强父母与喂养行为相关的知识、技能和行为。主要结果包括：i）实施可行性，主要通过保留率进行评估；和 ii）通过调查和定性过程评估来评估方案的可接受性。次要结果包括：i）PFPs 的潜在影响，ii）父母对孩子体重的感知（PPCW），iii）父母的育儿胜任感，iv）儿童的饮食行为，和 v）儿童的体重状况。定量分析包括评估可行性的描述性估计和测试潜在效果的线性混合回归分析。定性评估将使用主题框架分析。
如果这项研究表明该方案易于实施且父母易于接受，将使用该方案为确定其有效性的全面试验提供信息。该研究还将有助于为儿童营养促进的背景下的政策和实践提供信息，特别是在类似环境中由医疗保健提供者实施小组培训课程方面。
Clinicaltrials.gov，方案编号 NCT06181773，2023 年 11 月 20 日。
