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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth

Date Submitted: Nov 2, 2021
Date Accepted: Jul 26, 2022

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

First-time Mothers’ Understanding and Use of a Pregnancy and Parenting Mobile App (The Baby Buddy App): Qualitative Study Using Appreciative Inquiry

Bailey E, Nightingale S, Thomas N, Coleby D, Deave T, Goodenough T, Ginja S, Lingam R, Kendall S, Day C, Coad J

First-time Mothers’ Understanding and Use of a Pregnancy and Parenting Mobile App (The Baby Buddy App): Qualitative Study Using Appreciative Inquiry

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2022;10(11):e32757

DOI: 10.2196/32757

PMID: 36409530

PMCID: 9723971

First-time mothers’ understanding and use of a pregnancy and parenting mobile application (The Baby Buddy app): a qualitative study using appreciative inquiry.

  • Elizabeth Bailey; 
  • Samantha Nightingale; 
  • Nicky Thomas; 
  • Dawn Coleby; 
  • Toity Deave; 
  • Trudy Goodenough; 
  • Samuel Ginja; 
  • Raghu Lingam; 
  • Sally Kendall; 
  • Crispin Day; 
  • Jane Coad

ABSTRACT

Background:

Internationally, there is an increasing emphasis on early intervention in the first 1000 days to support pregnant mothers and optimise the health and development of newborns. To increase intervention reach, digital and app-based interventions have been advocated. This paper reports on the qualitative arm of the independent multicomponent evaluation of the Baby Buddy app, a pregnancy related app supported by several professional bodies and developed by a UK young child health and wellbeing charity Best Beginnings.

Objective:

To understand when, why and how first-time mothers use the Baby Buddy app and the perceived potential benefits.

Methods:

An Appreciative Inquiry (AI) qualitative approach was used with semi-structured interviews (n = 17) undertaken with pregnant mother either by telephone or in a focus group. Thematic analysis was used to synthesise the rich data and present findings.

Results:

Four over-riding themes were collated with regard to women’s use of the Baby Buddy app and its influence on interactions with health care professionals and family: Accessibility of information, Knowledge, Reassurance and Reliability, and Confidence.

Conclusions:

The findings demonstrated a cyclical pattern between the emergent themes, which could provide a framework on which to support first-time mothers’ engagement with digital health management tools. Clinical Trial: NA


 Citation

Please cite as:

Bailey E, Nightingale S, Thomas N, Coleby D, Deave T, Goodenough T, Ginja S, Lingam R, Kendall S, Day C, Coad J

First-time Mothers’ Understanding and Use of a Pregnancy and Parenting Mobile App (The Baby Buddy App): Qualitative Study Using Appreciative Inquiry

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2022;10(11):e32757

DOI: 10.2196/32757

PMID: 36409530

PMCID: 9723971

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© 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.