Effectiveness of a Baby App for Enhancing Infant Mental Well-being (RCT)
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Smartphone app "Happy Baby HK", Family Health Service parenting booklet.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Child Development. Basic parameters: 1 Day — 18 months · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Hong Kong
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Effectiveness of a Technology-based Developmental Guidance Program for Enhancing Infant Mental Well-being: a Randomized Controlled Trial
Overview
This RCT aims to design and develop a developmental guidance program delivered by a smartphone app "Happy Baby HK" and evaluate its effectiveness for enhancing the mental well-being of recently born infants in Hong Kong. This study will evaluate the effectiveness of the improvement in the effect of infants and decrease of risk of developmental delay in very young children. The smartphone app "Happy Baby HK" will be designed and developed by different professionals. Then, participants will be invited to use this app or the MCHC parenting booklet. They will also be invited to fill in some questionnaires at 6, 12 and 18 months postpartum to screen the developmental stages. Researchers will compare the intervention group and the control group to evaluate the effectiveness of this app for enhancing the mental well-being of infants.
Detailed description
Infant mental health refers to "the developing capacity of the child from birth to age three to experience, regulate, and express emotions; form close and secure interpersonal relationships; and explore the environment and learn - all in the context of family, community, and cultural expectations for young children". Despite the stability of temperamental characteristics across context and over time, environmental factors such as good mother-infant relationship can protect against the development of psychiatric morbidities in children with difficult temperament. Research studies also show that anticipatory guidance interventions can promote optimal child development, increase maternal knowledge of their infants, positive parent-infant interactions and reduce injury rates.
To enhance infant mental well-being, the proposed project team designs a smartphone app "Happy Baby HK" that provides development guidance to mothers of recently born infants in Hong Kong. Compared to traditional approaches (e.g. parenting pamphlets or clinical consultation on developmental issues), smartphone apps devoted to parenting guidance could feature video demonstrations, quizzes, interactive games, and written information with vivid images and cartoons which are more likely to engage parents and reinforce their learning anytime and anywhere.
However, currently there is no technology-based intervention with provision of anticipatory guidance information on child development in Hong Kong.
Therefore, the objective of this study is to design and develop a developmental guidance program delivered by a smartphone app "Hapy Baby HK" and evaluate its effectiveness for enhancing the mental well-being of recently born infants in Hong Kong. The improvement on parental stress will also be evaluated.
Interventions
- Device Smartphone app "Happy Baby HK"
"Happy Baby HK" will provide developmental stage, developmental aspects, parenting videos and cartoon images created for new mothers. - Device Family Health Service parenting booklet
The parenting booklet is publicly available and provides brief caretaking tips for mothers with children under 3 years of age.
Primary outcome measures
- At 6 postpartum [Time frame: 6 months postpatrum]
- 12 months postpartum [Time frame: 12 months postpatrum]
Secondary outcome measures (5)
- At 18 months postpartum (child development) [Time frame: 18 months postpartum]
- At 18 months postpartum (screen time) [Time frame: 18 months postpartum]
- At 18 months postpartum (DASS-21) [Time frame: 18 months postpartum]
- At 18 months postpartum (KIDI) [Time frame: 18 months postpartum]
- At 18 months postpartum (PSS) [Time frame: 18 months postpartum]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- mothers aged 18 years or above who attend the antenatal clinics or stay in the postnatal wards at Kwong Wah Hospital or Queen Mary Hospital at the time of recruitment and can give consent
Exclusion criteria
- mothers who have inability to read Chinese, no Internet access, high risk pregnancy, history of psychiatric illness,
- infants with congenital/genetic/structural abnormalities,
- infants required admission to neonatal intensive care unit
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Single blind
- Primary purpose
- Supportive care
Study locations
Hong Kong · 1 center
- Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine — Hong Kong
Identifiers
NCT: NCT06163560 · Babyapp_rct