City Research Online

Abstract

Objective: Early-life nutrition plays a key role in establishing healthy lifestyles and preventing chronic disease. This study aimed to 1) explore healthcare professionals' (HCP) opinions on the acceptability of and factors influencing the delivery of interventions to promote healthy infant feeding behaviours within primary care, and 2) identify proposed barriers/enablers to delivering such interventions during vaccination visits, to inform the development of a childhood obesity prevention intervention.

Design: A qualitative study design was employed using semi-structured telephone interviews. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis; findings were also mapped to the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA).

Setting: Primary care in Ireland

Participants: 21 primary care-based HCPs: 5 practice nurses, 7 general practitioners, 3 public health nurses, 3 community dietitians and 3 community medical officers.

Results: The acceptability of delivering interventions to promote healthy infant feeding within primary care is influenced by the availability of resources, HCPs' roles and priorities, and factors relating to communication and relationships between HCPs and parents. Proposed barriers and enablers to delivering interventions within vaccination visits include; time constraints versus opportunistic access, existing relationships and trust between parents and practice nurses, and potential communication issues. Barriers/enablers mapped to TFA constructs of Affective Attitude, Perceived Effectiveness and Self-Efficacy.

Conclusions: This study provides a valuable insight into HCPs perspectives of delivering prevention-focused infant feeding interventions within primary care settings. While promising, factors such as coordination and clarity of HCP roles and resource allocation need to be addressed to ensure acceptability of interventions to HCPs involved in delivery.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society
Publisher Keywords:	Infant feeding, Early-life nutrition, Childhood obesity, Primary care, Prevention, Intervention
Subjects:	R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Midwifery & Radiography
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads