The Development and piloting of an eHealth breastfeeding resource targeting fathers and partners as co-parents

• Published in: Midwifery 2017-07, Vol.50, p.139-147
• Main Authors: Abbass-Dick, Jennifer, Xie, Fangli, Koroluk, Jaymie, Alcock Brillinger, Shelley, Huizinga, Joanne, Newport, Amber, Goodman, William M., Dennis, Cindy-Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Attitude to Health; Best practice; Breast Feeding - psychology; Breastfeeding; Breastfeeding & lactation; Co-parenting; e-Health; Educational programs; Electronic health records; Fathers; Fathers - psychology; Feedback; Female; Games; Goal setting; Health Education - methods; Humans; Infant Care - methods; Infant, Newborn; Internet; Internet access; Male; Medical personnel; Middle Aged; Needs assessment; Nursing; Ontario; Parenthood education; Parents & parenting; Parents - education; Pilot Projects; Pregnancy; Prenatal education; Professional training; Psychometrics - instrumentation; Psychometrics - methods; Questionnaires; Recruitment; Sexual Partners - psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teamwork; Telemedicine - standards
• ISSN: 0266-6138; 1532-3099
• DOI: 10.1016/j.midw.2017.04.004

Traditionally breastfeeding education programs target mothers solely. The objective of this study was to design and pilot test an interactive eHealth breastfeeding co-parenting resource developed to target both mothers and fathers. eHealth resources provide an accessible and engaging format on which to educate parents and assist them in meeting their breastfeeding goals. Best practices to design such resources are not currently known. A three phase pilot study was conducted. The three phases included conducting a needs assessment, creating the resource and pilot testing the resource with mother, father and health care professionals to determine their perspectives regarding the usability and design of the prototype resource. The interactive prototype resource was designed to provide information to parents on breastfeeding and co-parenting, which included suggestions on how fathers can be involved and support breastfeeding and how the couples can work as a team to meet their breastfeeding goals. Setting: Recruitment took place in a health region in Southern Ontario, Canada between June 2014 and March 2015. Online questionnaires were completed by participants in all phases of the study.Participants: Participants (n=149) were pregnant or new mothers and their partners in the health region who read and speak English and had access to the internet and health care professionals who work with breastfeeding families in Ontario, Canada. A prototype eHealth breastfeeding co-parenting resource was developed based on maternal and paternal feedback from Phase I and utilized an interactive interface which included games and multimodal information delivery. The prototype eHealth resource was provided to the parents in Phase II and health care professionals in Phase III. The final resource was created based on feedback from these participants. The resource was pilot tested with new and expectant parents using pre- and post-test questionnaires which included measures for breastfeeding self-efficacy (Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Short Form), infant feeding attitude (Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale), breastfeeding knowledge (Breastfeeding Knowledge Questionnaire) and co-parenting relationship (Co-parenting Relationship Scale). Maternal and paternal breastfeeding self-efficacy and knowledge and infant feeding attitude scores all increased from pre-test to post-test. However, there was no difference in the co-parenting relationship scores from pretest to post-test. This study