Table 4. Data extraction with study details.
| Study | Title | Aim of study | Study design | Participants | Data analysis | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Banerjee et al. (2020), UK, PMID: 31227521 | Improving infant outcomes through implementation of a family integrated care bundle including a parent supporting mobile application | To improve infant health outcomes and parent experiences through a model IFDC* program that included development of a free mobile app to provide educational and reflective opportunities for parents | Quality improvement project | Families of 37 infants requiring a NICU stay and admitted between April 2017–May 2018 | Retrospective control in pre-post intervention analysis | Infants in the IFDC group had shorter median LOS in the NICU and reached both enteral and full-suck feeds earlier than retrospective matched controls |
| GA at birth <34 weeks, LOS at least 14 days, Discharged home | Data analyzed using SPSS Statistics V.20.0 to compare variables including NICU LOS between IFDC and control groups | Secondary outcomes such as mortality, intraventricular hemorrhage, and necrotizing enterocolitis were not significantly different between the two groups | ||||
| Garfield et al. (2016), USA; PMID: 27990350 | Supporting parents of premature infants transitioning from the NICU to home: A pilot randomized control trial of a smartphone application | To determine whether parents of VLBW infants in the NICU transitioning home with the “NICU-2-Home” app had greater parenting self-efficacy, were better prepared for discharge, and had shorter LOS than control parents | Randomized control trial | 90 parents of VLBW infants | Linear mixed-effects model was used to examine the change in mean PSOC scores over three time points | Parents who used the app had improved parenting self-efficacy and discharge preparedness |
| Parents were at least 18 years old and English-speaking | Both variables were also influenced by app usage (e.g., increased app usage contributed to higher PSOC scores) | |||||
| Garfield et al. (2022), USA; PMID: 35033562 | A Mobile Health Intervention to Support Parenting Self-Efficacy in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit from Admission to Home | To test whether parents of premature infants <37 weeks of gestation provided the “NICU-2-Home” app had greater parenting self-efficacy compared with controls | Quasi-experimental, nonrandomized, time-lagged study | 298 English-speaking parents of preterm infants (<37 weeks) admitted to a large, urban Midwestern NICU who have an Android or Apple smartphone | Evaluation of the PSOC across the study period | PSOC scores of intervention parents who received the NICU-2-Home app were consistently higher across the study period compared with those in the control group. Parents who used the app more frequently had significantly higher PSOC scores than the control group |
| Jani et al. (2021), USA; PMID: 33888330 | PretermConnect: Leveraging mobile technology to mitigate social disadvantage in the NICU and beyond | To describe the participant-centered design approach of PretermConnect and to present preliminary findings from focus groups and co-designs | Human-centered iterative design methodology with co-design sessions | 37 English-speaking mothers with a history of preterm birth <1 year, who have a mobile smartphone | Qualitative analysis consisting of reviewing session audio recordings and transcripts to identify common themes in patient needs and app design | Development of the PretermConnect app to address the social, emotional, and health educational needs of women at risk for preterm birth based on feedback provided through co-design sessions |
| Lakshmanan et al. (2022), USA; PMID: 35204980 | Designing a Mobile Health Solution to Facilitate the Transition from NICU to Home: A Qualitative Study | To elucidate caregiver and provider perspectives on the design of a mobile health application for facilitating the transition from the NICU to home | Qualitative research | 11 caregivers of infants with complex chronic disease and 11 providers (neonatologists, pediatricians) | Inductive thematic analysis approach, an iterative process of coding to identify the patterns among concepts | Caregiver and provider priorities for designing a mobile health solution during the transition from the NICU to home included the following domains: implementation ideas around user interface and timing, providing path planning and information, increasing support, improving engagement with providers and services, mitigating barriers to care after discharge, and strengthening parenting role and confidence |
| To identify general recommendations and specific priorities of caregivers and providers in terms of the content, design, information, and support that an app might provide | ||||||
| Phagdol et al. (2022), India; PMID: 34889469 | Designing a mobile health intervention for preterm home care: Application of conceptual framework | To describe the process of designing a sustainable mobile app for delivering preterm home care to babies discharged from the NICU and remote monitoring of their growth and development | Application of conceptual framework for designing mHealth app for preterm home care | Not specified | Not specified | Multifunctional app that is potentially beneficial to preterm infants graduating from NICU, mothers/parents of these preterm infants, and the health care professionals who cared for the infants in NICU |
| Designed and developed as part of an ongoing randomized controlled trial | ||||||
| Richardson et al. (2019), Canada; PMID: 30985282 | Evaluation of Mobile Apps Targeted to Parents of Infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Systematic App Review | To identify and evaluate apps targeting parents of infants in the NICU for quality of information, usability, and credibility | Systematic review (of Apple and Google app stores) | English apps targeting NICU parents that cost less than $20 | 3 tools were used for evaluation: MARS to measure quality; PEMAT-AV to measure the app’s content usability; and Trust it or Trash It to measure credibility | Using MARS, 7 apps (7/18, 39%) received a good score on overall quality (i.e., 4.0 out of 5.0), with none receiving an excellent score |
| 8 apps (8/18, 44%) received a PEMAT-AV score between 51% and 75% on the understandability subscale, and 8 apps (8/18, 44%) scored between 76% and100% on the actionability subscale | ||||||
| Trust It or Trash It deemed 13 apps (13/18, 72%) as trash for reasons including no identification of sources or lack of current information, with only 5 (5/18, 28%) deemed trustworthy | ||||||
| Spargo et al. (2018), New Zealand; PMID: 29417669 | ‘Babble’: A smartphone app for parents who have a baby in the neonatal unit | To develop a smartphone app ‘Babble’ with the needs of parents in a NICU in New Zealand in mind | Semi-structured interviews, app development | 7 sets of parents of babies in the NICU plus a project group of neonatal nurses, lactation consultant, pediatrician, parents, software developer, designer, photographer, and project manager | Not specified/applicable | Generic neonatal topics on ‘Babble’ are feeding, routine checks and tests, equipment, gestational expectations, advice for dads, expected problems and common neonatal diseases, how to keep babies safe and medications |
| More local topics are information regarding our NICU environment, staff, and practices, preparing for going home and how to find help once discharged from the NICU |
IFDC, integrated family delivered care; NICU, neonatal intensive care unit; LOS, length of stay; GA, gestational age; VLBW, very low birth weight; PSOC, parenting sense of competence; MARS, mobile application rating scale; PEMAT-AV, patient education materials assessment tool for audiovisual materials.