Abstract

This article describes the development of the Parenting Premmies Support Program, a mobile health intervention designed to support mothers during the transitional time following their preterm infant’s discharge from hospital. Examples of how research teams give voice to the target population throughout the development and design of mHealth programs is largely missing from the literature. A detailed description of the steps taken in the development of the mHealth intervention that formed the support program is the intention of this paper. An exploratory, sequential, mixed-methods approach with a three-phase design was conducted. In each phase, the experience and perspectives of mothers of preterm infants were acknowledged and included. Phase one sought women’s accounts of their experience collected in semi-structured interviews (n = 9) and subject to a descriptive content analysis. In the second phase, a collaborative, stakeholder interrogation of issues was conducted to develop content of the mHealth protocol. In this phase, two interdependent procedures were used with two participant panels; a stakeholder panel (n = 10) undertook a series of face-to-face meetings, and a user group panel (n = 18) of women who had birthed a preterm infant up to 12 months before undertook an online Delphi survey. In phase three a pilot implementation of the program was undertaken with women whose preterm infants were being discharged home from hospital. The outcome was an mHealth protocol, a resource designed to support women by giving them information to understand and normalise their experience with their preterm infants, and to help them make decisions which may enhance responsive mothering. Collaborative research integrating user feedback in partnership with experts in the field increases the likelihood the final product will be of value and prove supportive and useful to the target audience.

摘要

本文介绍了“育儿早产支持计划”的发展，该计划旨在为母亲在早产儿出院后的过渡时间内为母亲提供支持。研究团队在整个mHealth程序的开发和设计过程中如何向目标人群发出声音的例子在文献中几乎没有。本文旨在详细描述形成支持计划的mHealth干预措施的开发步骤。进行了探索性，顺序，混合方法的三相设计方法。在每个阶段中，早产婴儿的母亲的经验和观点都得到承认并包括在内。第一阶段寻求妇女对她们在半结构化访谈（n = 9）中收集的经验的描述，并进行描述性内容分析。在第二阶段中，进行了利益相关者的协作性询问，以开发mHealth协议的内容。在这个阶段，两个参与者小组使用了两个相互依赖的程序。一个利益相关者小组（n = 10）进行了一系列面对面的会议，一个用户小组（n = 18）进行了在线Delphi调查，这些妇女在早产12个月之前出生了早产婴儿。在第三阶段，该方案的试点实施是针对早产婴儿正从医院出院的妇女进行的。结果是一项mHealth方案，一种资源，旨在通过向妇女提供信息来了解和规范其早产婴儿的经历，并通过帮助她们做出可增强反应能力的母亲的决策来支持她们。结合用户反馈意见与该领域专家合作进行的协作研究增加了最终产品有价值的可能性，并证明了对目标受众的支持和有用。