Funding outcome

It has become increasingly clear that parents need knowledge and confidence to be involved in decisions about their child's health care. One campaign that has the potential to empower parents in making informed choices is Choosing Wisely Canada (CWC). CWC aims to facilitate conversations between healthcare providers, patients and families to make informed health care choices, with the goal to reduce unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures. While there are campaigns targeting clinicians, to date there have been no public facing CWC campaigns focusing on parents. We have co-designed a project with parents to assess the effectiveness of Blogshots (an image-based knowledge translation product) to increase parent awareness, knowledge and expectations regarding child specific CWC recommendations that align with common childhood conditions (sore throat, common cold, ear infections, asthma, bronchiolitis). We will use social media to recruit parents to randomly receive Blogshots about different CWC recommendations, and evaluate their knowledge and actions around seeking treatment for their child before and after they receive the intervention (Blogshots). We will invite parents to one-on-one interviews to discuss their thoughts of the intervention (delivery and format). While the trial will provide estimates of the effectiveness of the Blogshots, the interviews will help us understand how the intervention worked. By developing and evaluating evidence-based CWC resources, we are making it easier for parents to choose wisely. Empowering parents to engage in conversations with their child's healthcare provider can improve health decision-making and reduce health system costs.