Development and Incorporation of Safe Sleep Education Into m-Health Technology for the Pediatric Emergency Department

More than 3500 children die annually in the US from Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID) and sleep-related causes. Among the groups at highest risk for unsafe sleep behaviors and sleep-related infant mortality are racial and ethnic minorities, young mothers, and parents with substance use disorders. Safe sleep education is of great importance for the local community as infant mortality rates are notably high in Baltimore City. In 2017, Baltimore City's infant mortality rate was 1.3 times that of the state of Maryland and 1.5 times greater than the U.S. average. Of these deaths, 16.3% were related to sleep in Baltimore City compared to only 6.5% in the U.S. as a whole. Although attempts at integrating safe sleep education into health care visits have been met with varying success, the investigators have developed a theory- driven and evidence-based safe sleep intervention that increased safe sleep knowledge and practices.

Given that rates of sleep-related deaths have plateaued in the past decade, new prevention strategies are needed. For instance, strategic use of technology-based approaches as well as targeted efforts in the pediatric emergency department (PED) setting merit consideration for several reasons. First, smartphones and mobile applications provide additional opportunities to disseminate health education to parents. M-Health (mobile health) education apps have demonstrated the ability to deliver safety education. However, the efficacy of mobile applications for increasing adherence to safe sleep recommendations has not been tested. Second, there is a growing emphasis on the need for prevention and health education in the emergency department. The emergency department is also particularly well suited for the employment of technology-based interventions, as clinicians have limited time to provide education while patients often face long wait times. In the Johns Hopkins PED, previous research has demonstrated high smartphone use, and acceptability of such interventions. Further, many SUID cases had in emergency departments visits prior to death, which represents a missed opportunity to intervene and educate families about safe sleep, making safe sleep education in the PED imperative. Finally, many urban PEDs, serve a population at high risk for infant mortality due to sociodemographic factors.

To address these gaps and needs, this study proposes to adapt the Safety in Seconds (SIS) app to include safe sleep content and pilot test in the PED setting. The SIS app is a theory-based, m-Health tool that has been previously tested in the PED in an NIH-funded randomized trial that demonstrated its efficacy in improving appropriate car seat and smoke alarm knowledge and use. This app provides computer-generated, tailored messages to parents. There are three steps involved in the tool: (1) assessment; (2) data processing; and (3) feedback. Parents complete an assessment in the app and the answers are processed by a computer program to link each answer to specific theory-driven messages that are responsive to parents' reported beliefs and practices. These messages are used to produce a computer-generated, tailored report with persuasive and informative messages about safety topics. Building on this SIS app with proven effectiveness, the goal of this project is to incorporate evidence based, previously developed safe sleep education into the app and encourage implementation of safe sleep practices among families presenting to the PED.

Aim 1: Digitize existing educational content on infant safe sleep recommendations and incorporate into the SIS app (following the previously utilized process for the current app content on car seat safety and fire safety).

Aim 2: Pilot test the updated m-Health tool - SIS 2.0 - which incorporates new infant safe sleep content (from Aim 1) with existing injury prevention content on child passenger safety and fire safety. Feedback will be obtained from parents through follow-up surveys and interviews. Hypothesis: use of the SIS app for provision of safe sleep education will be effective in conveying this education.