Identification of target behavior in process of intervention for children with feeding difficulty and relevant factors in randomized controlled trial

摘要

Objective To identify the target behavior in the process of behavioral intervention for children with feeding difficulty and relevant factors that may contribute to more effective intervention.Methods Children aged from 1 to 6 years with feeding difficulty randomly received interactive behavioral intervention(245 cases)or routine primary care(217 cases).By the end of the 1,3,6,and 9 months,the rating score of feeding difficulty and the body mass index(BMI)were assessed.The target behavior was determined based on the selecting criteria that simultaneously satisfied two conditions:①it was relevant to improving children's nutritional status;②it changed fast during intervention.Moreover,the relevant factors of target behavior were analyzed by multivariate analysis(Multi-Way ANOVA).Results Among nine behaviors of feeding difficulty,"eating slowly"was identified as a target behavior because it was closely relevant to the BMI z-score increment and had the biggest score reduction at early stage during intervention.Various factors were relevant to improving the target behavior,including parents acting as caregivers,caregiver's education level equal to and above junior college,and caregiver's concern about their children's feeding difficulty.Conclusion"Eating slowly"should be selected as the target behavior for early intervention for children with feeding difficulty and some social factors should be considered for optimizing the intervention.