Validação de tecnologia assistiva para pais cegos : enfoque na alimentação complementar do lactente

Abstract

Blind people have children and, due to their sensory limitation, they experience difficulties to take care of their children. Complementary feeding of infants is critical, as it involves not only foods, but also preparation, hygiene and offering. Nursing assists blind people through the development of assistive technology (AT), granting them autonomy and independence. The objective was to validate AT for blind parents about complementary feeding of infants, available online. Study as Pasquali (2010) model undertaken between August/2011 and March/2013 at the Health Communication Laboratory of Universidade Federal do Ceará. The theoretical and methodological framework consisted of theoretical, empirical and analytic hubs. The theoretical hub covered the construction of the technology through an integrative review and the consultation of specialized materials; assessment of the AT by experts in child health and pedagogical aspects and online access by blind people; and a pilot test with blind people, natural or adoption fathers and mothers, as from the age of 18 years. The empirical hub included the assessment of the AT by a large number of blind mothers and fathers. All participants answered instruments using a Likert scale ranging from one to five, with one indicating the worst and five the best score. The analytic hub permitted the statistical analysis of the data. The qualitative variables were analyzed using the Chi-Square test and likelihood ratio. The means and standard deviation of the quantitative variables were calculated and the means for the topics were compared using Student’s t-test for independent data or Snedecor’s F-test (ANOVA). Inferential statistical analyses were considered significant when p<0.05. Approval for the project was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee at Universidade Federal do Ceará. The AT entitled “Taking care of the infant’s feeding” discussed the types of complementary foods; offering food to the child; preparation of the child’s food and hygiene of the child and was made available on the website www.labcomsaude.ufc.br. When assessed by nine experts, three from each area, they suggested: corrections in content information, non-professional language, references to the parents’ blindness in the text, access mechanisms. After the adjustments, the experts predominantly scored all items as five, confirming the appropriateness of their content and access to the target public. Eighty-nine blind mothers and fathers participated in the empirical hub, mainly women (53.9%), blind from birth (55.1%), mean age 37.91 years, not married (52.8%), secondary education (60.7%), having a paid job (56.2%), from the states of Pernambuco (51.6%) and Piauí (41.6%). The best scores came from the age range between 30 and 39 years, married and with a family income between 2.2 and six minimum wages. Among the topics addressed in the technology, all obtained favorable mean scores. The highest score was for the content (91.1±11.7), followed by online access (84.4±18.9) and pedagogical aspects (82.9±15.9). The results permit the hypothesis that the AT “Taking care of the infant’s feeding” is a valid and feasible means to transmit information to blind parents. At the end of this study, it is considered that nurses should use the construction of AT as a health promotion strategy with blind clients