Abstract
What Was Observed or Investigated: The increased morbidity of diverse infants is unacceptable, and methods to reduce necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in their communities are needed. This article discusses the importance of the Espanol toolkit; provides a backstory of how the Espanol toolkit came about and how it was verified and validated; and concludes with impressions from involving parents in the research process.
Subjects and Methods: After research evidence was translated from English into Spanish, a cross-sectional exploratory, descriptive, mixed-methods study was conducted, guided by the knowledge translation into practice (Translating Research Into Practice [TRIP]) framework. Twenty bilingual English-Spanish parents of fragile infants evaluated the NEC-Zero Espanol toolkit from a single neonatal intensive care unit.
Results and Conclusions: The NEC-Zero Espanol toolkit was found to be easy-to-use and useful and provided information that can be used to augment information sharing. Having access to health information offers a meaningful way to start a conversation and may even impact positive behaviors such as breastfeeding promotion. To lessen Spanish speakers' linguistic barriers, providing materials in Spanish can help meet their information needs and initiate conversations with healthcare providers. This is particularly important because Hispanic infants are at high risk for NEC.