The Effects of a Health Education Intervention Program on Infantile Colic

Background: Infantile colic (IC) is defined as uncontrollable irritability or crying in a healthy infant. It usually appears under 12-month after birth and about 10-20% infants have suffered it. The parents of infants with IC suffered from physical and mental anxiety and stressful family relationship. Objective: To examine the effects of an Infantile Colic Health Education Program (ICHEP) on parents’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral management with IC. Design: Two-group randomised controlled trail. Settings and Participants: A total of 140 infants from birth to 12-month of age that diagnosed with IC were recruited from a hospital in South Taiwan. Methods: The participants were randomly assigned to either attend the ICHEP (n=70) or the control group (n=70). The questionnaires included the knowledge, attitudes, behavioral management on infantile colic for parents, and the Cronbach’s α value was between 0.58 and 0.63. Pre-post-test, follow-up test and the re-tracing test were conducted. An independent t-test and the generalized estimating equation (GEE) model were used to compare the differences in the study outcomes. The statistical tests were two-sided and a p-value below 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: No difference was detected in the baseline characteristics between two-groups. The ICHEP group scores on knowledge, attitudes and behavioural management in the post-test were significantly higher than the pre-test. The average score of ICHEP in re-tracing test (p ＜ 0.001) was significantly higher than the scores of the pre-test (p = 0.08), the post-test (p = 0.001), and follow-up test (p = 0.32). Result was evident that the ICHEP significantly improved parent’ implementation of caring behaviour on IC and reduced the incidence of IC. Conclusions: The ICHEP can not only improve the parent’ knowledge, attitudes and management behaviour on IC but also significantly reduce the incidence of infants with IC. ICHEP can be used as a reference for healthcare workers to immediately provide to parents in the early stages of diagnosis at outpatient clinics in the future. We recommend that ICHEP can include into healthcare workers continues training courses in order to assist in understanding IC, help reduce anxiety and fear of parents, thereby enhancing a harmonious parent-child relationship.