Improving health promotion related to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), the need for a framework

Abstract

Background: Alcohol use during pregnancy is one of the leading preventable causes of intellectual or developmental disability. This situation clearly warrants intervention. The complexity of intervention development concerning FASD is overlooked in health promotion. Evidence-based health promotion intervention aimed at the field of FASD is a complex process. The field of FASD needs to use systematic approaches for adapting evidence based behavioural interventions (Bartholomew, et al. 2011). Intervention Mapping provides planners with a systematic method for designing interventions. Methods: The IM framework is a six step systematic approach for designing, implementing and evaluating health promotion programmes. This framework was used in the present study. Results: The needs assessment or situation analysis of the problem concerning FASD will be presented. Conclusion: Alcohol use during pregnancy is an important health problem. The Intervention Mapping framework is useful as a blueprint for designing, implementing, and evaluating an intervention model for FASD. The first step in this process showed that current data remains unsufficient of the existence of the problem and what it entails.