Philani Home-based Nutrition Intervention Program

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 2

Conditions: Child Weight

Treatments: Behavioral: Philani nutrition intervention program (mentor mothers)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00995592

Philani - original study

Details and patient eligibility

About

Malnourished children and babies with birth weights under 2500 grams are at high risk for negative outcomes over their lifespan. Philani, a paraprofessional home-visiting program, was mounted in neighborhoods in three townships in Cape Town, South Africa, from 2002 to 2004 to improve nutritional outcomes.

One mentor mother was recruited from each of 37 neighborhoods. Mentor mothers were trained to conduct home visits to weigh children and to support mothers to problem-solve life challenges, especially around nutrition. Households were randomly assigned on a 2-to-1 ratio to the Philani program or to a standard care condition. Children were evaluated over a 1-year period.

The investigators hypothesized that children in the intervention would gain more weight than children in the control.

Enrollment: 684 patients

Sex: Female

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• mother or caregiver
• with child under 5 years of age and malnourished (malnourished if less than 2 standard deviations below the World Health Organization normative mean weight for the child's age

Exclusion criteria

• no malnourished children under care
• malnourished children not living in household

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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684 participants in 2 patient groups

Mentor mothers

Experimental group

Description:

Behavioral intervention was offered through mentor mothers. Mentors were mothers in community who were selected by because they were doing well. They were trained to conduct home visits, up to 16 times over one year period, ranging from 20 minutes to 2 hours. Mentor mothers worked to improve health of mother and their child and build social support in neighborhood.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Philani nutrition intervention program (mentor mothers)

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Control cases were visited and their infants were weighed 4 times over one year period. After one year, mothers were provided Philani nutrition intervention program.