Midwives as providers of HL-sensitive counselling on early childhood allergy prevention: co-design of an educational intervention (Health Professionals)

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Barbara Fillenberg; Dr. Julia von Sommoggy
• Subject Area: Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409800133

Midwives are in regular contact with expectant and new parents, which is a decisive moment for families and a window of opportunity to enhance parental health literacy (HL). They provide pre- and postpartum care in the homes of families, which is a unique consultative situation. Results from our qualitative study indicate, that knowledge on early childhood allergy prevention (ECAP), HL and HL-sensitive counselling strategies could be enhanced in midwives. However, available interventions and toolkits regarding HL-sensitive counselling are not yet addressed at midwives. Additionally, the education of midwives is currently changing in Germany, which offers the possibility to include HL and ECAP more prominently. It is thus necessary to further explore current practices, barriers and enablers of HL-sensitive ECAP counselling by midwives, to then develop an educational intervention considering their specific needs to be implemented in the training and (further) education of midwives. The study objective is to develop an educational intervention for midwives in a participatory way to enable them to consider and assess parental HL when counselling on ECAP, to educate them on HL-sensitive counselling strategies and to enable them to support familial HL in general. The work program consists of four tasks, with the MRC Framework guiding the intervention development. First, we will administer the survey developed in the first funding phase to midwives in Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria to quantify our results from the qualitative study regarding current practices, barriers and enablers of HL-sensitive ECAP counselling. In task 2, we intend to explore central methodological, didactic, and content-wise elements of an intervention that supports midwives’ HL-sensitive counselling on ECAP. We will conduct workshops with different stakeholders using the design thinking method to develop respective ideas. Based on these ideas, the research team, together with didactic experts will develop an intervention in task 3. As a last step (task 4), the intervention will be piloted in different settings and for different target groups. Subsequently process and outcome will be evaluated and adapted if needed. WP-Health Professionals focuses on the healthcare environment shaping parental HL in ECAP. WP-Conflict of Interests and WP-Living Systematic Reviews provide the up-to-date research evidence on ECAP. WP-Planetary Health will support the development of the intervention. WP-Doing health as well as WP-Epidemiology will provide insights into parental ECAP practices. Moreover, WP-Health Professionals is linked to WP-User-needs and results regarding communication of ECAP information to parents will be compared and contrasted.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2959: Health literacy in early childhood allergy prevention: parental competencies and public health context in a shifting evidence landscape (HELICAP)
• Co-Investigator: Professor Christian Apfelbacher, Ph.D.