An evaluation of a postural care training package: Improving self-efficacy in parents and teachers who care for a physically disabled child

An evaluation of a postural care training package: Improving self-efficacy in parents and teachers who care for a physically disabled child.

Background: Parents and teachers lack self-efficacy when providing postural care to physically disabled children. This acts as a barrier to the successful implementation of therapy programmes. To address this, a postural care training package was developed to improve self-efficacy. The aim was to evaluate this training package.

Methods: Participants (N = 65) were recruited on to a 6-week training package that included a 2-hour interactive postural care workshop and follow-up one-to-one support by physiotherapists/occupational therapists. To assess effectiveness the UKC-PostCarD scale was utilised. This measures levels of knowledge, confidence and concerns in proving postural care and was completed at baseline (T1) and 6-weeks later (T2). Paired-samples t-test compared mean scores at T1 with T2 to establish the effectiveness of the package.

Findings: Knowledge about postural care increased from T1 (M = 2.37, SD = .39) to T2 (M = 2.93, SD = .36). Confidence in providing postural care improved from T1 (M = 2.51, SD = .52) to T2 (M = 3.02, SD = .32). Finally, participants reported lower levels of concerns at T2 (M = 2.05, SD = .44) compared to T1 (M = 2.58, SD = .53). All differences were significant at p<.001.

Discussion: The postural care training package enhances the self-efficacy of those responsible for the day-to-day postural care of children with disabilities. If made available more widely, it could improve collaborative working with benefits for disabled children and their families. As more physically disabled children attend mainstream schools this will be a timely and useful resource.