JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The natural integration of mobile phones into families’ daily routines provides novel opportunities to study and support family functioning and quality of interactions between family members in real time.

Objective:

This study aimed to examine user-experiences of feasibility, acceptability, and reactivity (i.e., changes in awareness and behaviors) of using a smartphone application (app) for self-monitoring of family functioning with 36 participants across 15 family dyads and triads of young adolescents ages 10 to 14 years and their parents.

Methods:

Participants were recruited from two family wellness centers in a middle to upper income shopping area and a low-income school site. Participants were instructed and prompted by alarms to complete ecological momentary assessments (EMA) by smartphone app over two weeks four times daily (upon waking/morning, afternoon/lunch time, late afternoon / early evening, and end of day at bedtime). Domains assessed included parental monitoring and positive parenting, parent involvement and discipline, parent-child conflict and resolution, positive interactions and support, positive and negative affect, sleep, stress, family meals, and general child and family functioning. Qualitative interviews assessed user-experiences generally and with prompts for positive and negative feedback.

Results:

Participants were primarily White and Latino of mixed income and education levels. Children were ages 10 to 14 years, and parents had mean age of 45 years (range 39 to 50). EMA response rates were high (95% to over 100%), likely due to cash incentives for EMA completion, engaging content per user feedback, and motivated sample from recruitment sites focused on social-emotional programs for family wellness. Some participants responded for up to 19 days, consistent with some user-experience interview feedback of desires to continue participation for up to three or four weeks. Over 80% of participants reported increased awareness of their families’ daily routines and functioning. Most also reported positive behavior changes in the following domains: decision-making, parental monitoring, quantity and quality of time together, communication, self-regulation of stress and conflict, discipline, and sleep.

Conclusions:

The results of this study support the feasibility and acceptability of using smartphone EMA by young adolescents and parents for assessing and self-monitoring family daily routines and interactions. Findings also suggest that smartphone self-monitoring may be a useful tool to support improvement in family functioning through functions of reflection on antecedents and consequences of situations, prompting positive and negative alternatives, seeding goals, and reinforcement by self-tracking for self-correction and self-rewards. Future studies should include larger samples with more diverse and higher risk populations, longer study durations, inclusion of passive phone sensor and biometric peripheral devices, and integration with counseling and parenting interventions and programs.