How do we determine that our bladder health resources are really doing a good job? How do we know whether they’re making a difference? Ultimately, we are conducting a needs assessment in various forms. We want to understand how we can best support families based on their needs. To do this, we are assessing both access/barriers to bladder health education and its quality.
Clinical Problem
- Bladder Health
- Stone Disease
Education Program
- Bladder Basics
Research Methods
Community-Engaged Research
Qualitative/Mixed Methods
Education Research Design
Epidemiological
Current Projects
Happy Healthy Bladder
Currently Enrolling
Currently enrolling parents and pediatricians
- Parents
- Parents or caregivers directly involved in caring for a child (or children) who is 4 to 8 years old or have been involved in the last 3 years. Child may or may not have any bladder issues currently or in the past.
- Pediatricians
- Are you a healthcare provider in northern California involved in the care of children 4-8 years of age? We would like to understand your perspectives and obstacles that may be present in providing bladder education and care to your patients.
- Are you a healthcare provider in northern California involved in the care of children 4-8 years of age? We would like to understand your perspectives and obstacles that may be present in providing bladder education and care to your patients.
Email us at hhbladderstudy@stanford.edu
We aim to study the knowledge and attitudes of parents and pediatricians who care for these children via focus groups and one-on-one interviews in order to identify barriers to earlier bladder health education.
Next, we aim to deploy local and statewide surveys to a larger group of these stakeholders in order to understand if there is a variation among different sub-groups.
The results of this study will help inform future community-based interventions.
Text4US
Pending Recruitment
Pending Recruitment
Please click here to complete our screening survey for the study.
Pediatric Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (pLUTS) is common in school-age children and can negatively impact the quality of their life. Although at least 50% of children with pLUTS can improve through behavioral changes, there is a lack of effective tools and services to help those children adopt healthy bladder behaviors.
To address this issue, we developed Text4US, an early model of text message-based personalized healthcare assistant, to improve the care of children with peeing problems at home.
The aim of this study is to examine the feasibility of Text4US. The study results will deepen the understanding of treatment options for pLUTS and provide an opportunity to optimize pediatric urology practice by integrating digital technology.
Bladder Basics
Bladder Basics
Bladder Basics is a video-based bladder health education curriculum developed by our team and supported by a San Jose Auxiliary for Children grant. It is based on our 2-year experience leading Bladder Bootcamp, a bi-monthly Zoom bladder health education class in our urology clinic. Bladder Basics aims to better serve an audience of families of children 5-10 years old with pLUTS. We have six 3-7 minutes videos that teach the topic of pLUTS with a behavioral change lens using engaging animated videos that include songs, humor and interactive activities. One stand-alone lesson delivers key changes to improve symptoms, with additional content to describe anatomy, constipation, hydration, and obstacles to implementation of new practices. We also plan to translate Bladder Basics into Spanish.
Ethnography
We are currently investigating shared decision making in pediatric urology through an ethnographic lens to understand children’s health education and autonomy in healthcare settings. Shared decision-making (SDM) is an evidenced-based approach that promotes collaboration between patients, family members, and healthcare providers (HCP) when making health decisions. However, as patients, children, and adolescents with medical conditions, tend to be excluded from healthcare decision-making. Parents or guardians act as surrogate decision makers. In Dr. Kan’s clinical experience, children and their parents often come with an ‘I don’t know” mindset. Children’s knowledge regarding their condition, their ability to share their views and make decisions regarding their own health is vital to their long-term wellbeing. In this study, we aim to a) observe the communication between children and their treating physicians, b) understand children’s knowledge and perception regarding their health condition and c) examine children’s participation in decision making regarding their care.
RE-AIM
We are using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework to evaluate the efficacy and sustainability of Bladder Bootcamp and Bladder Basics. We plan to use a mixed methods strategy that includes a retrospective chart review, surveys, and focus group interviews. From our results, we will identify and address areas of improvement in reaching certain populations, improving our educational material, increasing awareness among healthcare professionals about the intervention, and ensuring the sustainability of operating Bladder Bootcamp. We also aim to identify and address areas of improvement in reaching certain populations, improving our educational material, increasing awareness among healthcare professionals about the intervention, and ensuring the sustainability of operating Bladder Bootcamp. After evaluating Bladder Bootcamp and Bladder Basics individually, we will conduct a comparative analysis of each RE-AIM component. The results will inform us of how the programs differ in reaching certain participant demographics, educating participants on bladder health, willingness from healthcare professionals to adopt each, and strategies to improve program sustainability.
See Our Work!
Past conferences and publications