Effects of the GROW Program on Grandparents’ Health Literacy in Promoting Early Childhood Development
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Abstract
Background: Developmental problems in early childhood arise from multiple factors. Therefore, strengthening the capacity of caregivers, particularly grandparents, to possess adequate health literacy in promoting early childhood development is essential.
Objective: To examine the effects of the GROW program on grandparents’ health literacy in promoting early childhood development.
Methods: This quasi-experimental study employed a two-group pretest-posttest design. The participants comprised 60 grandparents caring for children aged 0–3 years. The participants were assigned equally to experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group received the GROW program, which applied House’s concept of social support, including informational, instrumental, appraisal, and emotional support to strengthen health literacy based on the Ministry of Public Health’s V-shape framework for 5 weeks. This framework comprises six dimensions including access, understanding, questioning, decision-making, adaptation, and communication. Data were collected using a researcher-developed health literacy questionnaire, validated for content (IOC = 0.93) and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.91). Descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, and paired sample t-test were employed for data analysis.
Results: The findings revealed that, after the intervention, the experimental group demonstrated significantly higher mean scores for health literacy in promoting early childhood development, both overall and individual dimensions, compared with pretest scores and with the comparison group (p< 0.05).
Conclusion: The GROW program is effective in enhancing grandparents’ health literacy in promoting early childhood development and can be implemented within families as well as communities to strengthen the capacity of caregiving.
Thaiclinicaltrials.org number, TCTR20250222004
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