Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jul 28, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 28, 2023 - Sep 22, 2023
Date Accepted: Nov 24, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Randomized Pilot of Rosie, a Health Education Question-and-Answer Chatbot for New Mothers
ABSTRACT
Background:
Stark disparities in maternal and child outcomes continue to be observed in the United States.
Objective:
Assess the feasibility and acceptability of a maternal and infant health chatbot designed to provide timely and accurate health information to new mothers of color.
Methods:
Rosie, a question-and-answer chatbot, was developed as a mobile app and is available to answer questions about pregnancy, parenting, and child development. Participants were recruited using social media posts, including targeted advertisements and through engagement with community organizations. Participants were randomly assigned to the Rosie treatment group (n=15 received the Rosie app) or control group (n=14 received a children’s book each month) for three months. Pre- and post-tests were completed to qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate Rosie and track any changes across key health outcomes including postpartum depression and frequency of emergency room visits.
Results:
Pilot results suggest high acceptability of Rosie among mothers and feasibility of study protocols. Both Rosie and control mothers experienced a decline in the PHQ depression scores from pre- to post-test, but the decline was statistically significant only among Rosie mothers (P=0.008). Additionally, a lower proportion of Rosie infants had ER visits (9.09%) compared to control members (23.08%). Nonetheless, no between-group differences reached statistical significance at P<0.05. Qualitative feedback suggests the need to expand Rosie’s knowledge corpus to allow users to ask general health questions and to improve the precision of Rosie’s responses.
Conclusions:
Rosie was found to be an acceptable and feasible intervention for ethnic and racially minoritized pregnant women and mothers of infants due to the chatbot’s ability to provide a personalized, flexible tool to increase the timeliness and accessibility of high-quality, peer-reviewed health information to individuals during a period of elevated health risks for mother and child.
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Copyright
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