Abstract
BackgroundThe ability to appraise claims about the benefits and harms of treatments is crucial for informed health care decision-making. This research aims to enable children in East African primary schools (the clusters) to acquire and retain skills that can help them make informed health care choices by improving their ability to obtain, process and understand health information. The trial will evaluate (at the individual participant level) whether specially designed learning resources can teach children some of the key concepts relevant to appraising claims about the benefits and harms of health care interventions (treatments).MethodsThis is a two-arm, cluster-randomised trial with stratified random allocation. We will recruit 120 primary schools (the clusters) between April and May 2016 in the central region of Uganda. We will stratify participating schools by geographical setting (rural, semi-urban, or urban) and ownership (public or private).The Informed Healthcare Choices (IHC) primary school resources consist of a textbook and a teachers’ guide. Each of the students in the intervention arm will receive a textbook and attend nine lessons delivered by their teachers during a school term, with each lesson lasting 80 min. The lessons cover 12 key concepts that are relevant to assessing claims about treatments and making informed health care choices. The second arm will carry on with the current primary school curriculum.We have designed the Claim Evaluation Tools to measure people’s ability to apply key concepts related to assessing claims about the effects of treatments and making informed health care choices. The Claim Evaluation Tools use multiple choice questions addressing each of the 12 concepts covered by the IHC school resources. Using the Claim Evaluation Tools we will measure two primary outcomes: (1) the proportion of children who ‘pass’, based on an absolute standard and (2) their average scores.DiscussionAs far as we are aware this is the first randomised trial to assess whether key concepts needed to judge claims about the effects of treatment can be taught to primary school children. Whatever the results, they will be relevant to learning how to promote critical thinking about treatment claims.Trial status: the recruitment of study participants was ongoing at the time of manuscript submission.Trial registrationPan African Clinical Trial Registry, trial identifier: PACTR201606001679337. Registered on 13 June 2016.
Highlights
As far as we are aware this is the first randomised trial to assess whether key concepts needed to judge claims about the effects of treatment can be taught to primary school children
In addition to reducing the number of concepts introduced initially, we increased the time for each lesson from one to two periods to address the major barrier we found in the pilot testing, which was insufficient time
It is unlikely that the Informed Healthcare Choices (IHC) primary school resources alone will have a measurable effect on health outcomes
Summary
The trial will evaluate (at the individual participant level) whether specially designed learning resources can teach children some of the key concepts relevant to appraising claims about the benefits and harms of health care interventions (treatments). There has been an explosion in communication avenues for all types of information, including health, and children as well as adults are bombarded with all sorts of claims about the benefits and harms of treatments. This includes claims about conventional medicines, herbal medicines and nutritional therapies, dietary supplements, cleansing therapies, massage, reflexology and many other types of treatments. These problems are especially serious in resource-poor settings, where people have few resources to waste and a large burden of disease
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
