Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Aug 16, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 11, 2018 - Nov 6, 2018
Date Accepted: Mar 24, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Framework for developing an app-based parenting intervention for unintentional injury among caregivers of Chinese children ages 0-6 years: a mixed-method study
ABSTRACT
Background:
With growing popularity of mobile health technology, application-based (app-based) interventions delivered by smartphones have become an increasingly important strategy toward injury prevention.
Objective:
To develop a framework supporting the design of an app-based intervention for unintentional injury among caregivers of Chinese children ages 0-6 years.
Methods:
A theory-based mixed-method study, including focus groups and online quantitative survey, was performed. Adult caregivers who care for children aged 0-6 years old and own a smartphone were recruited into two stages of research. First, focus groups were conducted among the caregivers at community healthcare centers and preschools from December 2015 to March 2016. Focus groups (8-10 participants per group) explored awareness, experiences, and opinions of caregivers toward using an app to prevent unintentional injury among children. Second, based on the focus groups findings, an online quantitative survey was designed and distributed to caregivers in November 2016; it collected information on specific needs for the app-based intervention. Thematic analysis and quantitative descriptive analyses were performed.
Results:
In total, twelve focus groups were completed, involving 108 caregivers. Most participants expressed strong desire to learn knowledge and skills about unintentional child injury prevention and held positive attitudes toward app-based interventions. Participants expressed multiple preferences concerning the app-based intervention, including their contents, functions, interactive styles, installation and registration logistics, and privacy protection and information security. 1505 caregivers completed a WeChat-based online quantitative survey, which generated roughly similar results to those of focus groups and added numerical metrics concerning participants’ preferences on what to learn, when to learn it, and how to learn it. A detailed framework was established involving five components: (a) content design; (b) functional design; (c) interactive style; (d) installation and registration logistics; and (e) privacy protection and information security, and 15 specific requirements.
Conclusions:
We developed a framework that can be used as a guide to design app-based interventions for unintentional injury prevention among caregivers of children ages 0-6 years.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.