In It for the Long Haul: RE-AIM Evaluation of a Preschool Programme Implementing and Maintaining Adult-Initiated Motor Skill Development and Physical Activity across a Two-Year Period.

Trine Top Klein-Wengel,Jens Troelsen,Thomas Skovgaard,Jonas Vestergaard Nielsen

doi:10.3390/ijerph19052544

Trine Top Klein-Wengel, Jens Troelsen + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19052544

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Abstract

Good motor skills (MS) are considered important for children’s social, psychological and physical development and general physical activity (PA) levels. The Motor skill in Preschool study (MiPS) aimed to optimize children’s MS through weekly PA sessions. The aim of this study is to use the RE-AIM framework to report the two-year implementation process of MiPS since the programme’s initiation. Data were collected through a staff questionnaire based on the RE-AIM framework. Data were collected at three months, one year and two years after initiation. Results show that the pedagogical staff believes that the programme promotes MS in children. Implementation measures only showed medium to low fidelity concerning the core element of performing adult-initiated PA sessions with a duration of at least 45 min 4 days a week. The largest barrier was finding the time to plan these PA sessions. Still, the content of the PA sessions achieved high fidelity scores and the programme was deemed suitable for staff’s everyday practice and in alignment with the stated pedagogical goals. The mandatory competence development course was highly valued as strong implementation support. It is notable that there is a large variation in the implementation among the preschools with some struggling more than others.

Highlights

Good motor skills (MS) are considered important for children’s general physical activity levels as well as their physical, social and psychological development [1,2,3]
When looking at the individual preschool institutions, the results show some variation regarding the experience of the programme being effective, ranging from 78 to 100% at T1 and 57–100% at
Results show that staff motivation decreased from 98 to 89% during T1-T3 and variations across preschool institutions show that the lowest response to motivation drops from 89% at T1 to 57% at T3

Summary

Introduction

Good motor skills (MS) are considered important for children’s general physical activity levels as well as their physical, social and psychological development [1,2,3]. Danish school-aged children are not physically active according to the stated guidelines from the Danish health authority and WHO [7,8,9]. This suggests that interventions in early childhood are appropriate, while recommended in order to help promote lifelong healthy PA behaviour [10,11,12]. MS and PA track during the life course, suggesting that intervening in early childhood seem recommendable in order to promote lifelong healthy PA behaviour [13,14].

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