Peer-reviewed article
Perceptions of mothers on child well-being, changes in everyday life and social sustainability: lessons learned from a community-based health promotion programme in Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka
G. N. Duminda Guruge, Adam Arhelger, Kalpani M. P. W. Abhayasinghe ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study evaluated a health promotion programme implemented in Sri Lanka from 2012 to 2015 that aimed to improve children's well-being. Researchers interviewed 15 mothers four months after the programme ended to understand their perceptions and whether the benefits had lasted. Mothers reported positive changes at individual, family and community levels, particularly related to health literacy and making informed decisions. The study found both factors that helped sustain the programme and barriers that limited its continuation in the community.
Key points
- Mothers reported transformation for betterment at individual, family and community levels following the health promotion intervention
- Health literacy emerged as a central theme, with mothers developing ability to use health information for well-informed decision-making
- Mothers acknowledged the responsibility of social organizations to support health literacy development
- Study identified both drivers/adaptations that enabled continuation of practices and determinants that hindered sustainability
- Mixed results were found regarding sustainability of the intervention four months after programme closure
Limitations
The study used a convenient sample of only 15 mothers and was conducted only four months after programme closure, which is a relatively short timeframe for assessing true long-term sustainability. The qualitative design cannot determine which specific health promotion activities were most effective or measure population-level impact.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: From 2012 to 2015, a health promotion intervention (under a project called HADP) aiming to improve children's well-being was implemented in Horowpathana, Sri Lanka. The donor organization reports positive results regarding children's well-being and behaviour changes, but mixed results regarding its sustainability. A need for a complementary evaluation was therefore identified. The current study intended to provide a complementary evaluation at four months after the programme closure and to assess the sustainability of the HP intervention from the perspective of mothers who participated in the HADP. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the ethics review subcommittee of Faculty of Applied Sciences, RUSL. METHODS: A descriptive qualitative study was carried out using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a convenient sample of 15 mothers who previously participated in HADP. Data analysis was done using the content analysis method. RESULTS: Mothers attributed diverse perceptions in line with the theme of "health literacy". Two sub-themes emerged: transformation for betterment and sustainability. The sub-theme of transformation for betterment consists of three categories: individual-level transformation, family-level transformation and social/community-level transformation. Sub-theme sustainability consists of two categories: (1) drivers/adaptations for continuation and (2) determinants that hinder the continuation. CONCLUSIONS: The mothers' perspectives were strongly related to the definition of health literacy, which emphasizes people's ability to use health information to make "well-informed" decisions that incorporate a public health perspective. They also acknowledged the responsibility of social organizations to address health literacy. From a health promotion perspective, the findings of our study indicate that people and organizations can use their health literacy skills to improve the health and well-being of their community and its members. Further research is necessary to explore the factors that affect the sustainability of health promotion interventions in the long run.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Community-based health promotion programme (HADP) delivering health education and promoting behaviour change
- Population
- Mothers and families in Horowpathana, Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka
Key finding
Mothers reported positive transformations in health literacy and well-informed decision-making at individual, family and community levels