Rosie the Chatbot: Leveraging Automated and Personalized Health Information Communication

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Infant Development; Pregnancy; Infant Conditions; Postpartum Depression
• Interventions: Behavioral: Rosie the Chatbot

• Registration Number: NCT06053515
• Lead Sponsor: University of Maryland, College Park

Brief Summary

Rosie the Chatbot is an educational chatbot that moms can have on their computers or cellphones and will work by moms typing in their questions about pregnancy, health, infant milestones, and other variety of health related topics and receiving back a response immediately. Rosie only provides information from verified sources such as children's hospitals, health organizations and government agencies. Rosie does not ask moms to provide any personal information on her or her child, her chat is completely confidential, it works in English and Spanish and will be free.

Detailed Description

This study will examine whether the use of a chatbot to impart health information to minority women during pregnancy and postpartum period improves health care seeking behavior and maternal and infant health outcomes. This study does not involve administration of an investigational intervention and therefore poses minimal risk to participants.

Aim 1: Develop technology for a "chatbot" that will provide health information support to vulnerable mothers the moment they need it.

Aim 2: Evaluate the use of Rosie on maternal and infant outcomes. Aim 3: Release an open-source packet for the construction of a chatbot.

* Participants in the study will be randomly assigned into one of two groups, Rosie the Chatbot group (treatment group) and Book Club group (control group).

* Participants in the Rosie the Chatbot Group will be taking a pre-test health survey, mid-test health survey, and post-test health survey. In addition, they will be expected to actively use the chatbot app by asking questions related to maternal and infant health and selecting "thumbs up or thumbs down" to provide feedback for questions' response and use the features (video library, resources page, frequently asked questions (FAQ), and daily syllabus).

* Participants in the Book Club Group will be taking a pre-test health survey, mid-test health survey, and post-test health survey. In addition, they will receive a monthly children's book, which they are expected to read with baby if parenting or individually if pregnant.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2023-09-15
• Study First Submitted QC: 2023-09-15
• Study First Posted: 2023-09-25
• Study Start: 2023-10-09
• Status Verified: 2024-04
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-04-16
• Last Update Posted: 2024-04-17
• Primary Completion: 2026-01-01
• Study Completion: 2026-06-30

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: Female
• Target Recruitment: 400

Inclusion Criteria

• Age 14 years and older
• Racial minority women
• Pregnant or has an infant < 6 months
• Must be able to read English or Spanish

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Exclusion Criteria

• Mother younger than 14 years of age at time of child's birth.
• Non-hispanic white

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Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Rosie the Chatbot Group	Rosie the Chatbot	Participants in the Rosie the Chatbot Group will be taking a pre-test health survey, mid-test health survey, and post-test health survey. In addition, they will be expected to actively use the chatbot app by asking questions related to maternal and infant health and selecting "thumbs up or thumbs down" to provide feedback for questions' response and using the features (video library, resources page, frequently asked questions (FAQ), and daily syllabus).

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Maternal postpartum depression	12 months post randomization	The investigators will utilize the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Scale to measure maternal depression. This scale can range from 0 to 27, since each of the 9 items can be scored from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day). Higher scores indicate worse depression severity.
Attendance of well-baby visits (preventive healthcare visits)	12 months post randomization	The investigators will measure the number of well-baby visits.
Number of emergency room visits	12 months post randomization	The investigators will measure the number of visits to the emergency room.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Maryland; 🇺🇸 College Park, Maryland, United States