Assessing the Impact of Training For Parents

• General Statement of the Problem:

The research problem of this article was to explore the impact of a community-based training program for parents and caregivers of children with cerebral palsy who come from a low and middle-income settings where services for these children are most times not available. The authors of this article responded to the need for home and community-based interventions based on past research they encountered. This was clearly defined in the article’s introduction.

• to Purpose of Study:

The purpose of the study in this article was to make caregivers feel empowered enough to improve care and support for their children with cerebral palsy.

The authors wanted parents to have training to offer those children what was needed to be great caregivers while relieving stress from the parents. The authors also wanted to explore the impact the training would have on the child’s health and nutritional status. To see if the training were making a difference in the lives of the parents and children, parent interviews were conducted at home at least one month before beginning and one to two months after completing the last training session.

This was clearly defined in the article. I believe this article’s intended audience is parents, caregivers, educators, support staff, community members, and other professionals looking to improve quality of life when facing disabilities in the home.

• Justification for and or significance of the study:

I believe this study is justified and relates closely to a form of Parent University.

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I believe that if we help parents understand how to help their child when facing any obstacle that would improve the overall child, parent, and home life. To improve, I believe parents have to understand how to help at home. So often parents and their children who are our students go lacking because of a lack of knowledge. I believe that this training program will help these parents know how to use what they have and how to find resources that will be able to help them at home. In return, this will help the parents be better caregivers and help improve the lives of the children with cerebral palsy. The authors assumed that the parents were the ones left without resources. I agree with this, but I believe that the educators of these students should have been included as well. Often educators may need extra training on how to deal with certain students to make the learning experience better for that particular child. In this case, this is a disability that if not encountered before could leave educators not very confident about which approach to take to better serve the student.

• Specific Research Question(s) and Hypothesis:

In this article, the authors are evaluating the impact of a parent training program on children with cerebral palsy and their caregivers in Ghana. The authors are also aiming to discover the impact on the parents who are the primary caregiver’s quality of life and knowledge towards caring for the child, the child’s health, and nutritional status. The research question or hypotheses are not clearly stated in the article, however, it is clearly defined and implied throughout the abstract and data collection.

• Definitions

In this article, there were a few key terms that I gathered from my reading. The key terms include cerebral palsy which is a disease that the children in the study are suffering from, rehabilitation which is a service that has been offered in hospitals to the affected children, and parent training which is given to the parents monthly.

• Background and Review of Related Literature:

I clearly understand the topic and what is being researched in this article despite the lack of specifically stating the research question and hypothesis. They are researching the impact parents’ participation in training classes will have on them as a caregiver, their quality of life and knowledge towards caring for a child with cerebral palsy, and their child’s health and nutritional status. This has been evaluated in the article. The data was given in interviews that were collected at the participants’ homes to support the statements above in an easy-to-read paragraph that was clear and precise. Thus, this article and review are relevant to the research and perfect for this time.

Design and Methodology:

• Research Designs

In this qualitative research study, the authors implemented a Grounded Theory Research method for the pre and post-evaluations. First, the parents were given an interview at home about one month before beginning training. A questionnaire was used to collect data about socio-demographics, quality of life, and knowledge in caring for their child. Data was collected on the child including demographics, cerebral palsy severity, health status, and feeding difficulties. Participants were interviewed again about 2 months after training was completed. Using the Grounded Theory Design method was the best method because the authors were able to collect data and study that data as it related to each individual. I believe the interviews were a great way to gather the information that was needed because they consulted the individuals involved directly. I believe that was the best research method to use when assessing these groups of parents and children with cerebral palsy.

• Subjects

In this article, the subjects were clearly defined. The author’s used parents who were the primary caregivers for children who were suffering from cerebral palsy to explore the impact on caregiver quality of life and knowledge towards caring for the child, and on the child’s health and nutritional status. The authors started with a total of 75 caregiver-child pairs. By the end of the study, 8 children died and 3 did not complete the study. The children were placed into three groups depending on their health. Those groups were mild, moderate, and severe. In my opinion, a severe group should have been ruled out. Simply because of the children’s health issues and outlook of not being able to complete the program. For this study, the results may have been more realistic if this group was not included. In my opinion, this was the health was not in a place where they should have been able to participate in this study, therefore this is the only limitation that I see.

• Instrumentation:

In this article, the authors gave each parent an interview at home in the form of a questionnaire asking for socio-demographics, quality of life, and knowledge of caring for their child. The data on the child included demographics, the severity of cerebral palsy, health status, and reported feeding difficulties. All of this data was collected electronically using a tablet. The questions were specific and clear. The data gathered is extremely reliable in my opinion because it comes directly from the parents. The parents were also able to answer questions about their children. The data collected was recorded and later recorded again and evaluated for improvements. I believe this is a great way to evaluate those students as well.

• Procedure:

In this article, the author stated that parents who were the main caregivers were invited to a support group and offered a total of eleven once a month group training. Parents were given a survey to complete at the beginning of the program and the end. I do believe there were a few weaknesses in this study. I think that when the authors conducted the interviews they should have shed light and guided the discussion so parents would have known how to thoroughly answer the questions. If they did this, it was not communicated in the article. Also, I believe that another interview should have been completed at the midpoint. This would have helped to see what direction they were headed in and if there was any extra support that should have been added. A strength was the parents being able to complete the interview in the comfort of their own home.

• Data Analysis:

I believe that the authors did a great job stating how the data was collected and organized in this article. There was a section specifically dedicated to this and it was clear, concise, and easy to read along with a precise date range of which data was collected. The authors stated that the parent’s information was gathered at their homes. I feel the authors did a good job of fully explaining their methods and relaying their findings to the readers.

• Results and Findings:

After analyzing the results, the authors stated that the program coordinator’s overall assessment was deemed “good”. The attendance for training sessions was also high at 92%. There were also improvements in the caregiver’s quality of life scores. Caregivers also reported improvements in knowledge and confidence in caring for their child, feeding practices, and their child’s physical and emotional health. There was also a small decrease in illness episodes. All of which answer, the research topic. The findings indicated that a training program delivered through a local support group with an emphasis on the parent resulted in increased caregiver knowledge of support and care for their children.

• Discussion:

I believe the results addressed the research topic well. The parent interviews along with the appropriate training classes yielded true findings. It shows that the program is making great progress towards its goals and should continue. Health issues such as malnutrition were reportedly high before and after the program. I think this should be a target area for future parent programs and studies. Health issues are an unavoidable limitation. I think the best thing to do in this case is to find solutions to help children dealing with this issue. However, that may not be as simple as just saying the words. This is an issue across the region and would take a deeper look by everyone not just those affected. Limitations also included thereisgroup’sg no control group to compare with. This was a great study that I couldn’t be happier with the results. The goal is to see improvements and thankfully the improvements happened because of a parent training group.