Parents, personalized infographics, and the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth

Abstract

Parents influence children's health behaviours and are the main audience for the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (24HMG) for Children and Youth. Depending on how current guidelines are framed, they may enact negative feelings, such as guilt, among parents. As part of the knowledge translation process, it is important for researchers to provide meaningful feedback and consider how to constructively frame that feedback. This pilot study examined the effect of message framing on parents' attitudes, emotions, and intentions to encourage their children's 24HMG adherence using a randomized design and targeted infographics. Parents (n=32) of children and youth completed a one-time survey about their physical activity (PA), perceptions and emotions of the 24HMG, instrumental attitudes (IA), intentions, and task self-efficacy (TSE). Parents were then randomized to one of three message-framing groups (gain, mixed, loss-framed) and were asked to react to a framed infographic summarizing a child's movement behaviours and prompts for improving 24HMG adherence. There were no significant group differences in attitudes, TSE, and intentions. However, parents with higher TSE had significantly greater intentions to encourage their children's adherence to the 24HMG. Regardless of self-beliefs, most parents (75%) were unfamiliar with the guidelines and 87.5% indicated they would like to receive an infographic with their child's 24HMG following participation in a research study. While this pilot explored parents' reactions to a hypothetical child, future research should explore the best methods of communicating with parents regarding their children's actual movement behaviours to promote 24HMG adherence for children and youth.