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Feasibility of Health Promoting Activity Coaching for Mothers of Children With Disabilities: Pilot Nonrandomized

Helen Bourke-Taylor¹, Monica Leo², Vanessa Harris³

¹Helen Bourke-Taylor, PhD, is Associate Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Primary and Allied Health Care, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Peninsula Campus, Frankston, Victoria, Australia; helen.bourke-taylor@monash.edu.

The American Journal of Occupational Therapy : Official Publication of the American Occupational Therapy Association

|June 9, 2023

Importance:

Mothers of children with disabilities experience health disparity. Interventions targeting maternal mental health need to be developed.

Objective:

To determine the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of the Healthy Mothers Healthy Families-Health Promoting Activities Coaching (HMHF-HPAC) intervention for mothers to improve participation in healthy activities and mental health and to evaluate outcome measures.

Design:

Nonrandomized controlled pilot feasibility study with one group who received HMHF-HPAC and a control group.

Setting:

Pediatric occupational therapy service; on site or telehealth.

Participants:

Twenty-three mothers completed prequestionnaires; of those, 11 mothers participated in the intervention, and 5 did not (7 withdrew).

Intervention:

Eleven pediatric occupational therapists were trained to deliver six 10-min sessions of HMHF-HPAC to mothers, integrated into their child's therapy session or separately via telehealth.

Outcomes And Measures:

Mixed-design analysis of variance explored changes in scores on the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 Items and the Health Promoting Activities Scale.

Results:

The intervention group reported, on average, significant reductions in depressive symptoms and stress symptoms and significant increases in participation in health-promoting activity. No significant main effect of time was found for these variables in the control group.

Conclusions And Relevance:

The HMHF-HPAC program is a viable occupational therapy coaching intervention that can be embedded in existing services for families of children with disabilities. Future trials that evaluate the effectiveness of the HMHF-HPAC intervention for mothers of children with disabilities are warranted. What This Article Adds: This article provides support for the feasibility of appropriate and sensitive outcome measures and program content and delivery to implement the novel HMHF-HPAC intervention in further research. Mothers of children with disabilities benefited from integrated HMHF-HPAC delivered by pediatric occupational therapists within the family's existing services.

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