This research study will occur at six schools dedicated to children with IDD that are a part of the Special School Districts in St. Louis, MO.
Additionally, surveys, focus groups, and fuzzy cognitive mapping sessions will be conducted at these six schools and at schools within the Kennedy Krieger School Programs in Baltimore, MD. Finally, a national survey will be administered to families, teachers, and staff of the 67 University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) which is sponsored by the Association of University Centers for Disability (AUCD).
The first aim will involve focus groups of parents/guardians, teachers, and school staff to identify the barriers and facilitators to frequent SARS-CoV-2 testing, impressions of COVID-19, and best messages and implementation strategies to promote increase testing and vaccination. A formal process for developing two types of messages (general versus focused) will be performed using focus group data and involving key stakeholders to test the messages. A cluster randomized adaptive clinical trial will then occur at the six special school district schools. In phase 1, the schools will be randomized initially to either the general or focused message to promote the adoption of weekly SARS-CoV-2 testing by the students and teachers. After 5 months, data analysis will be conducted to determine which strategy led to the highest percentage of testing. Phase 2 will begin at 7 months after the schools are randomized to either the best message determined from phase 1 or best message plus an augmented implementation strategy.
Beginning in April 2021 the first aim was expanded to include weekly testing and message development at the Kennedy Krieger Institutes and Sheppard Pratt Schools in Baltimore, MD. In phase 1, these schools will be randomized initially to either the general or focused message to promote the adoption of weekly SARS-CoV-2 testing by the students and teachers. After 5 months, data analysis will be conducted to determine which strategy led to the highest percentage of testing. Phase 2 will begin at 7 months after these schools are randomized to either the best message determined from phase 1 or best message plus an augmented implementation strategy.
The second aim will assess the national perspectives among parents of children with IDD and school staff regarding the impact of COVID-19 and importance of SARS-CoV-2 testing. Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) and the administration of local and national surveys will be used to accomplish this aim. FCM will involve in-person sessions with parents from the schools in aim 1 and Kennedy Krieger Institute/Sheppard Pratt schools in Baltimore, MD for children with IDD. These sessions will help identify the facilitators and barriers SARS-CoV-2 testing and other mitigation strategies including COVID-19 vaccine. Since no accepted measures have been developed for understanding parent and school staff concerns for children with IDD around COVID-19, local (St. Louis and Baltimore) and national surveys will be conducted. Custom surveys will be deployed across two stakeholder groups: parent/guardians and school staff. We will administer the survey at baseline and during the trial across school settings (St. Louis and Baltimore).
A national survey will also be administered across the UCEDDs. Psychometric analysis will be performed to help identify the questions for a national survey at the end of the study period. In addition to the custom surveys, NIH recommended parent-report surveys from the PhenX Toolkit will be used. The surveys to be used include the Psychological Stress Associated with the COVID-19 Crisis Scale and COVID-19 impact questionnaires.
