Health Literacy-Sensitive Counselling on Early Childhood Allergy Prevention: Results of a Qualitative Study on German Midwives’ Perspectives

Julia von Sommoggy, Eva-Maria Grepmeier and Janina Curbach
Additional contact information
Julia von Sommoggy: Medical Sociology, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Regensburg, 93051 Regensburg, Germany
Eva-Maria Grepmeier: Medical Faculty, Institute of Social Medicine & Health Systems Research, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
Janina Curbach: Department of Business Studies, Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: In Germany, midwives are involved in extensive antenatal and postnatal care. As health professionals, they can play a key role in strengthening health literacy (HL) of parents on how to prevent chronic allergic diseases in their children. The objective of this study is to explore midwives’ perspectives regarding HL-sensitive counselling in early childhood allergy prevention (ECAP). Twenty-four qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with midwives, and data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Only a small number of study participants were aware of HL as a concept. However, most of these use screening and counselling strategies which consider individual information needs and which support parental HL. HL sensitivity in counselling is largely based on the midwives’ “gut feelings” and counselling experience, rather than on formal education. The midwives were largely aware of evidence-based ECAP recommendations; however, allergy prevention was not seen as a stand-alone topic but as part of their general counselling on infant feeding and hygiene. They found parents to be more open to receiving complex prevention information during antenatal counselling. In order to strengthen midwives’ roles in HL-sensitive ECAP counselling, their formal education should provide them with explicit HL knowledge and counselling skills. ECAP should be an inherent part of antenatal care.

Keywords: health literacy; allergy prevention; health professionals; qualitative methods; midwives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4182/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4182/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:4182-:d:784741

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().