DESIGN: This is a qualitative study conducted among children with asthma and their parents. We used purposive sampling and conducted focus groups and interviews using a semi-structured topic guide in the participants' preferred language. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, entered into NVivo and analysed using a grounded theory approach.
SETTINGS: We identified children aged 7-12 years with parent-reported, physician-diagnosed asthma from seven suburban primary schools in Malaysia. Focus groups and interviews were conducted either at schools or a health centre.
RESULTS: Ninety-nine participants (46 caregivers, 53 children) contributed to 24 focus groups and 6 individual interviews. Children mirrored their parents' management of asthma but, in parallel, learnt and gained confidence to independently self-manage asthma from their own experiences and self-experimentation. Increasing independence was more apparent in children aged 10 years and above. Cultural norms and beliefs influenced children's independence to self-manage asthma either directly or indirectly through their social network. External influences, for example, support from school and healthcare, also played a role in the transition.
CONCLUSION: Children learnt the skills to self-manage asthma as early as 7 years old with growing independence from the age of 10 years. Healthcare professionals should use child-centred approach and involve schools to facilitate asthma self-management and support a smooth transition to independent self-management.
TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Malaysian National Medical Research Register (NMRR-15-1242-26898).
Methods: In this exploratory qualitative study, two focus group discussion (15 teachers) and 30 individual in-depth interviews were conducted among female adolescents in the eighth grade in Zahedan, Iran. Qualitative content analysis was used for data evaluation.
Results: The views of students and teachers demonstrated nine of needs including: informing students about the schools' health project aims, education and training all dimensions of health with an emphasis on mental health, use of experts in various fields for education from other organisations, employing capable and trusted counselors in schools, utilisation of a variety of teaching methods, activating reward systems for encouraging students' participation in group activities, teaching communication and the ability to establish good relationships with parents and strategies for resolving family conflict, teaching parents and students high-risk behaviours and strategies for handling them as well as reforming wrong attitudes and indigenous sub-culture.
Conclusion: This study found the different needs of Iranian female students compared to other cultures about a health promoting school programme. Therefore, their contribution can provide an insight for formulating policies and intervention in schools.
METHODS: Electronic medical records (EMR) were reviewed and phone surveys performed with parents of CDH survivors who underwent repair at our institution from 2010 to 2019. They completed the following Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) questionnaires: Generic Core Scales 4.0 (parent-proxy report) and Family Impact (FI) Module 2.0. Age-matched and gender-matched healthy controls from an existing database were used for comparison. Subgroup analysis of CDH patients alone was also performed. Appropriate statistical analysis was used with p
OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of Stop and Play, a digital parental health education intervention to reduce excessive screen time among preschoolers from low socioeconomic families in Malaysia.
METHODS: A single-blind, 2-arm cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted among 360 mother-child dyads attending government preschools in the Petaling district, who were randomly allocated into the intervention and waitlist control groups between March 2021 and December 2021. This 4-week intervention, developed using whiteboard animation videos, infographics, and a problem-solving session, was delivered via WhatsApp (WhatsApp Inc). Primary outcome was the child's screen time, whereas secondary outcomes included mother's screen time knowledge, perception about the influence of screen time on the child's well-being, self-efficacy to reduce the child's screen time and increase physical activity, mother's screen time, and presence of screen device in the child's bedroom. Validated self-administered questionnaires were administered at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 3 months after the intervention. The intervention's effectiveness was evaluated using generalized linear mixed models.
RESULTS: A total of 352 dyads completed the study, giving an attrition rate of 2.2% (8/360). At 3 months after the intervention, the intervention group showed significantly reduced child's screen time compared with the control group (β=-202.29, 95% CI -224.48 to -180.10; P
OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify the determinants of non-adherence to unintentional home injury prevention practice among parents of under-five children in the North Seberang Perai district, Penang.
METHODS: This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study consists of two phases consisting of a quantitative study which looks into respondents and their child's sociodemographic status, their home injury prevention practice and the independent variables, followed by a qualitative study that interviews parents with non-adherence to home injury prevention practice and explore their barriers. In phase I, the parent or primary caregiver of a child age less than five years old who age 18 or older and is a Malaysian will be included in the study while being disabled or having a severe psychiatric disorder or having the index child diagnosed with chronic disease will make them not eligible to participate in the study. Derived using the two-group proportion formula, a sample size of 453 parents will be sampled among those with under-five children following up at the Maternal Child Health Department in the health clinics of North Seberang Perai using stratified systematic sampling. Chi-square/Fisher Exact test, simple logistic regression and multiple logistic regression will be used for data analysis. The sample will be stratified according to household income to look for associated factors and determinants of low prevention practice. In phase II, parents with a low score from the quantitative study will be selected to participate in the qualitative study using purposive sampling. A semi-structured interview using the help of an interview guide will be carried out and recorded with a voice recorder. The thematic analysis approach will be used to analyse the qualitative data.
RESULTS: The study has been registered under the National Medical Research Registry.
CONCLUSION: It is hoped that findings from this study can shed light on the barriers faced by under-five parents in carrying out preventive measures at home.
DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study that used a convenient sampling technique.
STUDY SAMPLE: One hundred and fifty-seven parents of typically developing children aged between 4 months and 7 years participated in the study. Forty-nine completed the Malay PEACH + in a pen-to-paper format (Aim 1). One hundred and eight parents completed PEACH + online (69 completed the Malay version and 39 the English version), and 20 of them completed the questionnaire twice (Aim 2).
RESULTS: The PEACH + in Malay showed high internal consistency and item-total correlation. The normative data revealed that scores for frequency of auditory behaviour increased rapidly with age until about 20 months and reached an asymptote of around 90% by about 40 months of age. A similar trend was observed for ease of listening scores, which asymptoted around 85%.
CONCLUSIONS: The validated Malay PEACH + Rating Scale can be used as a guide to monitor auditory functional performance and listening efforts of Malaysian children in real-world environments.
Methods: This cohort study was designed to screen the hearing of newborns using transiently evoked otoacoustic emission and auditory brain stem response, and to determine the risk factors associated with hearing loss of newborns in 3 tertiary hospitals in Northern Thailand. Data were prospectively collected from November 1, 2010 to May 31, 2012. To develop the risk score, clinical-risk indicators were measured by Poisson risk regression. The regression coefficients were transformed into item scores dividing each regression-coefficient with the smallest coefficient in the model, rounding the number to its nearest integer, and adding up to a total score.
Results: Five clinical risk factors (Craniofacial anomaly, Ototoxicity, Birth weight, family history [Relative] of congenital sensorineural hearing loss, and Apgar score) were included in our COBRA score. The screening tool detected, by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, more than 80% of existing hearing loss. The positive-likelihood ratio of hearing loss in patients with scores of 4, 6, and 8 were 25.21 (95% confidence interval [CI], 14.69-43.26), 58.52 (95% CI, 36.26-94.44), and 51.56 (95% CI, 33.74-78.82), respectively. This result was similar to the standard tool (The Joint Committee on Infant Hearing) of 26.72 (95% CI, 20.59-34.66).
Conclusion: A simple screening tool of five predictors provides good prediction indices for newborn hearing loss, which may motivate parents to bring children for further appropriate testing and investigations.