Health, Wellbeing and Empowerment E-workshops for Mothers of Children with Disabilities: A Non-randomised Comparison Study.
Helen M Bourke-Taylor, Monica Leo, Loredana Tirlea
PMID 38520587WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers of children with disabilities who took part in an online health and wellbeing package reported more health promoting activities than controls.
The package combined Zoom workshops, a closed social media group, a website, and an e-workbook, so one part cannot be credited.
Key findings
01Health promoting activities improved more in the online group than in the control group, and the intervention group's mean change was 6.62 points, above the 5-point minimum detectable change.
02Depression and stress symptoms decreased more in the online group than in the control group.
03In the intervention group, reported frequency of accessing medical or allied health services increased from a mean of 1.89 to 2.83 on a 1 to 4 scale.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Mothers were not randomly assigned to the intervention or control group, so unmeasured differences such as motivation may explain the changes. Attrition was high: 64.6% in the intervention group and 71.2% in the control group at follow-up. Up to 35% of main outcome data were missing at follow-up, and the authors used imputation checks before reporting the original results. The intervention had several components, so the study cannot show which part, if any, produced the effects. The control group survey did not ask about health help seeking or actual health behaviour changes, so those findings are only descriptive in the intervention group. There was no long-term follow-up, so it is not known whether the changes lasted. The sample included mothers of children with a wide range of disabilities and different life situations, so results may not apply to every group.
Declared interests
Funding came from the Department of Social Services, Australian Government, and Monash University. The supplied text does not report a separate conflicts of interest statement.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the Zoom workshops alone improved maternal health. The tested package also included a closed social media group, a website, and an e-workbook, mothers were not randomly assigned, and many participants dropped out before follow-up, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.