I had just starting nursing school and I heard
about a potential for a work-study program that involved being a research
assistant. A friend from school had recently become involved in the study, and
it sounded like something I would be interested in. The project involves
working with Latino mothers and their babies and investigating the causes of
childhood obesity. Studies have been done in the past to examine the
correlation between feeding, activity level and childhood obesity, but there
has never been a focused study on this population. This is especially important
because Latino people have a higher obesity rate than the total National
obesity rate. I have always had an interest in working with the Latino
population, having spoken Spanish since I was 6 years old. After being selected
to work on the project by Dr. Gaffney, I started going to meetings with other
students working on the same project. As a group we worked on getting the
project off the ground.
During the first month or two a lot of time I
spent 1-2 days a week shadowing the doctors and the nurses to gain an
understanding of the flow of the clinic. The research assistants working under
Dr. Gaffney, including myself, met weekly. In the beginning we were very
focused on making sure our interview questions for the mothers, which were in
Spanish, made sense. These had all been translated from a study done in
English, and then back-translated to check for accuracy. We spent lots of time
double checking the interview questions and making sure our questions had the
intended meaning. The interview questions continued being changed even after we
started conducting the interviews, and were told by the interviewees that a
question did not make sense. After getting clearance to proceed with the
interviews for the internal review board at George Mason and INOVA, and after
completing several training modules, we were ready to begin interviews.
The study aims to look at the feeding and
activity of babies who range from 2 months to 1 year. The mothers answer
questions relating to the amount, frequency and type of feeding (breast,
bottle, formula or other), and if the baby is being fed solid foods such as
fruit or vegetables or rice cereal. I also investigate the activity level of
the babies by asking about how much “tummy time” the baby gets a day and how
much time is spent in different seats including car seats, swings and other
restraints. To qualify for the study the mother needs to be born in non-US
country, self-identify as Latina/Hispanic, and be at least 18 years old. The
baby needs to be a full-term, singleton birth, and at least 5 lbs at birth. The
interviews were conducted at the baby’s 2 month, 4 month and 6 month visits to
the clinic.
I
really enjoyed doing the interviews. I was nervous at first, but after one or
two, I felt much more comfortable conducting the interviews. There were some
surprises for me during the interviews. Many of the babies, even at 2 months,
spent a lot of time in front of a TV. Others were being given juice, or solid
foods. The study also had measures to check for post-partum depression, and if
they answered the questions in a way that indicated possible depression, they
were referred for further evaluation. There have been many interesting
experiences during my time spent conducting the interviews. I have also
conducted phone interviews for the 4 or 6 month visits if the baby’s
appointment was on a day that none of the research assistants available. This
has been a great experience so far and I look forward to continuing it!
