Low Parental Participation in a Randomised Clinical Trial of Video Tutorials: A Qualitative Study

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Healthcare
• Health Communication
• Digital Health Interventions

Background:

• Danish out-of-hours nonurgent medical helpline services are crucial for managing children's acute illnesses.
• A trial compared video tutorials with traditional telephone triage, but faced low parental engagement (6%).

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore barriers and facilitators to parental engagement in a trial comparing video tutorials with telephone triage for managing children's acute illnesses.
• To understand parents' experiences with video-based interventions versus professional telephone triage.

Main Methods:

• Conducted 39 semistructured interviews with parents (25 nonparticipants, 14 participants).
• Applied Clarke and Braun's thematic analysis to qualitative interview data.

Main Results:

• Key themes included initial negative responses, participation barriers (urgency, ambiguity), and facilitators (efficiency, resources).
• Nonparticipants cited urgency and preference for individualized care, opposing automatic disconnection.
• Participants found video tutorials time-efficient, confidence-building, and reassuring.

Conclusions:

• The study design impeded participation; future interventions must address perceived relevance and benefits.
• Improving parental engagement requires emphasizing time efficiency and other advantages of video resources.
• Longitudinal research is needed to assess long-term impacts on healthcare-seeking behavior and global applicability.