Evaluating the impact of a community health worker (Promotora de Salud) program on attitudes and beliefs regarding atopic dermatitis among Spanish-speaking Latin-American caregivers

Introduction: Community health workers (CHWs), or promotora de salud, have an important role in healthcare education and advocacy in the Latin American community. We aimed to determine the impact of a promotora de salud program on attitudes and beliefs regarding AD management among Latin American caregivers of pediatric patients with atopic dermatitis. Methods: This is a sub-study of an ongoing randomized, investigator-blinded, placebo-controlled trial. Mann-Whitney U tests compared questionnaire responses in the standard education group to the promotora group. Results: Caregivers in the promotora group were more likely to state that they knew how to apply wet wraps and use bleach (sodium hypochlorite) baths at 1 month (wet wraps p =.027, bleach baths p =.005) and 3 months (wet wraps p =.005, bleach baths p <.001) demonstrating greater self-efficacy, defined as an individual's belief in their capacity to execute a certain behavior to achieve a desired outcome, compared with the standard education group. Conclusions: Culturally competent and language concordant educational interventions may improve confidence in utilizing wet wraps and bleach baths among Latin-American caregivers of children with atopic dermatitis, which may improve AD outcomes in the Latin-American community.