Caregiver Engagement in Doctors’ Offices

Project

Led research to identify opportunities to integrate nutrition education in caregiver of young children’s experiences with their primary care providers.

Project Team: Claire Sadeghzadeh (Research Lead), Jared Bishop (Facilitator), Lindsay Guge Cozon (Facilitator), Eduardo Hernandez (Facilitator), Molly De Marco (Principal Investigator)

Process

Recruited 14 caregivers of young children across three states through partner outreach. Caregivers selected based on household size, age of children, employment (full time, part time, etc.), experience with and openness to nutrition education, geographics, type of health insurance, type of primary care doctor, and primary language spoken at home.

• Conducted two 2-hour virtual workshops with caregivers to understand needs and desires:

  • Session 1 Sample Questions and Activities:

    • Invited caregivers to develop empathy maps exploring what they say, do, think, and feel while at the doctor’s office.

    • Tell us about a time you felt most supported by your child’s doctor. What was that like?

  • Session 2 Sample Questions and Activities:

    • Invited caregivers to map their journey through a typical doctor’s visit including pain points, happy moments, and opportunities to integrate nutrition education.

    • What resources or support are you already receiving at the doctor’s office around food and nutrition? Who is providing it?

      • How useful or not useful is this information?

      • How culturally relevant is this information?

    • Where in this journey map do you leave with a lack of understanding or feeling like you need more information around food and nutrition?

• Synthesized user journeys and insights to inform recommendations for the types of nutrition education and qualities of these programs desired by caregivers.

• Conducted web-based desirability survey with caregivers to identify elements of interventions that rose to the top.

• Developed interview guide for assessing feasibility and desirability of these ideas with physicians and other clinical staff to help move these insights into ideation and implementation.

User Insights

• Caregivers identify as their children’s health advocate and want doctors to acknowledge them as knowledgeable about their children’s health and needs.

• Caregivers want to get connected to nutrition education in the doctor’s office but engage with it on their own time.

• Common places where caregivers would be open to connecting with nutrition education were the waiting room and exam room.

• Caregivers want to make sure they are asking the right questions during the short amount of time they have with their doctor. A tool to help them prepare and prioritize questions would be helpful.

• Common happy points were when parents received positive reinforcement and praise for clinic staff, like after taking their children’s height and weight.

Takeaways

• Consider leaving data collected in Spanish in Spanish to preserve participant voice and increase language access and equity.

• Caregivers shared very heavy stories about challenges experienced during pregnancy and post-partum. Almost half of the caregivers in these sessions had medically complex children. Hold these conversations with care and ensure people have space to take breaks or disconnect if needed.