Talking about baby walkers: Insights about health education from the field

Abstract

Objective To explore the perceptions and experiences of health visitors and parents of health education approaches to baby walker use. Design An exploratory focus group study to inform the development of an educational intervention to reduce baby walker use. Five groups were conducted. One group consisted solely of health visitors, one of antenatal parents and three of parents of children under 5 years of age. Setting Focus groups took place in the East Midlands area of the UK. Deprived and nondeprived areas were chosen by their 'Jarman' score and parent and toddler groups at local community facilities in these areas were invited to take part. Health visitors working within these areas were asked to participate, as were parents from these areas attending a hospital antenatal group. Method A purposive sampling strategy was used to recruit 43 professional and parent participants so that there was a mixture of baby walker users and nonusers, living and working in deprived and nondeprived areas. The five focus group interviews lasted for approximately one hour, were facilitated by the authors (AW, RH) tape recorded and transcribed and the transcriptions analysed by extracting the themes which emerged using the data management package NUD*IST. Results A number of common themes emerged including the dilemmas which arise in the health education consultation; how markets drive parental choices and the literature available; how parents and health visitors perceive each other in the consultation and the difficulties of explaining risks in a way which is understandable. Conclusion There are difficulties in the health education consultation which arise between parents and health visitors that need to be aired and addressed. There is a need for more training and support for health visitors and for them to be provided with evidence-based information which can be used in their daily practice. More research is required which looks at the respective experiences of parents and health visitors in the health education consultation.