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Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom

BACKGROUND: Prenatal education encourages healthy behavioral choices and reduces rates of adverse birth outcomes. The use of mobile health (mHealth) technologies during pregnancy is increasing and changing how pregnant people acquire prenatal education. SmartMom is an evidence-based prenatal educati...

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Autores principales: Murray, Jennifer B, Sharp, Alexander, Munro, Sarah, Janssen, Patricia A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10155084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37071451
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/44661
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author Murray, Jennifer B
Sharp, Alexander
Munro, Sarah
Janssen, Patricia A
author_facet Murray, Jennifer B
Sharp, Alexander
Munro, Sarah
Janssen, Patricia A
author_sort Murray, Jennifer B
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Prenatal education encourages healthy behavioral choices and reduces rates of adverse birth outcomes. The use of mobile health (mHealth) technologies during pregnancy is increasing and changing how pregnant people acquire prenatal education. SmartMom is an evidence-based prenatal education SMS text messaging program that overcomes barriers to prenatal class attendance, including rural or remote location, cost, stigma among participants, lack of instructors, and cessation of classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: We sought to explore perceived information needs and preferences for the content and structure of prenatal education mHealth programs among persons enrolled in or eligible to enroll in SmartMom. METHODS: This was a qualitative focus group study conducted as part of a development and usability study of the SmartMom program. Participants were older than 19 years of age, Canadian residents, fluent in English, and either currently pregnant or pregnant within the last year. We asked open-ended questions about information-seeking behaviors during pregnancy, the nature of the information that participants were seeking, how they wanted to receive information, and if SmartMom was meeting these needs. Focus groups took place via videoconference technology (Zoom) between August and December 2020. We used reflexive thematic analysis to identify themes that emerged from the data and the constant comparison method to compare initial coding to emerging themes. RESULTS: We conducted 6 semistructured focus groups with 16 participants. All participants reported living with a partner and owning a cell phone. The majority (n=13, 81%) used at least 1 app for prenatal education. Our analysis revealed that “having reliable information is the most important thing” (theme 1); pregnant people value inclusive, local, and strength-based information (theme 2); and SMS text messages are a simple, easy, and timely modality (“It was nice to have that [information] fed to you”; theme 3). Participants perceived that SmartMom SMS text messages met their needs for prenatal education and were more convenient than using apps. SmartMom’s opt-in supplemental message streams, which allowed users to tailor the program to their needs, were viewed favorably. Participants also identified that prenatal education programs were not meeting the needs of diverse populations, such as Indigenous people and LGBTQIA2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual, Two-Spirit plus) communities. CONCLUSIONS: The shift toward digital prenatal education, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a plethora of web- or mobile technology–based programs, but few of these have been evaluated. Participants in our focus groups revealed concerns about the reliability and comprehensiveness of digital resources for prenatal education. The SmartMom SMS text messaging program was viewed as being evidence-based, providing comprehensive content without searching, and permitting tailoring to individual needs through opt-in message streams. Prenatal education must also meet the needs of diverse populations.
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spelling pubmed-101550842023-05-04 Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom Murray, Jennifer B Sharp, Alexander Munro, Sarah Janssen, Patricia A JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Prenatal education encourages healthy behavioral choices and reduces rates of adverse birth outcomes. The use of mobile health (mHealth) technologies during pregnancy is increasing and changing how pregnant people acquire prenatal education. SmartMom is an evidence-based prenatal education SMS text messaging program that overcomes barriers to prenatal class attendance, including rural or remote location, cost, stigma among participants, lack of instructors, and cessation of classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: We sought to explore perceived information needs and preferences for the content and structure of prenatal education mHealth programs among persons enrolled in or eligible to enroll in SmartMom. METHODS: This was a qualitative focus group study conducted as part of a development and usability study of the SmartMom program. Participants were older than 19 years of age, Canadian residents, fluent in English, and either currently pregnant or pregnant within the last year. We asked open-ended questions about information-seeking behaviors during pregnancy, the nature of the information that participants were seeking, how they wanted to receive information, and if SmartMom was meeting these needs. Focus groups took place via videoconference technology (Zoom) between August and December 2020. We used reflexive thematic analysis to identify themes that emerged from the data and the constant comparison method to compare initial coding to emerging themes. RESULTS: We conducted 6 semistructured focus groups with 16 participants. All participants reported living with a partner and owning a cell phone. The majority (n=13, 81%) used at least 1 app for prenatal education. Our analysis revealed that “having reliable information is the most important thing” (theme 1); pregnant people value inclusive, local, and strength-based information (theme 2); and SMS text messages are a simple, easy, and timely modality (“It was nice to have that [information] fed to you”; theme 3). Participants perceived that SmartMom SMS text messages met their needs for prenatal education and were more convenient than using apps. SmartMom’s opt-in supplemental message streams, which allowed users to tailor the program to their needs, were viewed favorably. Participants also identified that prenatal education programs were not meeting the needs of diverse populations, such as Indigenous people and LGBTQIA2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual, Two-Spirit plus) communities. CONCLUSIONS: The shift toward digital prenatal education, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a plethora of web- or mobile technology–based programs, but few of these have been evaluated. Participants in our focus groups revealed concerns about the reliability and comprehensiveness of digital resources for prenatal education. The SmartMom SMS text messaging program was viewed as being evidence-based, providing comprehensive content without searching, and permitting tailoring to individual needs through opt-in message streams. Prenatal education must also meet the needs of diverse populations. JMIR Publications 2023-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC10155084/ /pubmed/37071451 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/44661 Text en ©Jennifer B Murray, Alexander Sharp, Sarah Munro, Patricia A Janssen. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 18.04.2023. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Murray, Jennifer B
Sharp, Alexander
Munro, Sarah
Janssen, Patricia A
Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom
title Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom
title_full Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom
title_fullStr Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom
title_full_unstemmed Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom
title_short Expectant Parents’ Preferences for Teaching by Texting: Development and Usability Study of SmartMom
title_sort expectant parents’ preferences for teaching by texting: development and usability study of smartmom
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10155084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37071451
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/44661
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