Constructing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Intelligent Interaction System for Symptom Management on the Care Needs and Related Factors of Children With Tourette Syndrome and Their Parents

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a common chronic neurodevelopmental disorder in children. Parents play critical roles in helping to manage their child's symptoms, leading to several issues associated with care needs and the parent-child interaction. This study adopted a randomized control study design. The investigators developed a TS symptom management APP based on symptom management theory and the relevant literature. The research subjects were parents of children with TS between 6 and 12 years old. The experimental group received TS symptom management APP intervention for four weeks. The experimental group recorded the patterns and treatments of tics at least twice a week and completed relevant readings on TS care information during these four weeks. The control group continued to receive outpatient verbal and paper health education guidance from healthcare providers. The participants in both groups were requested to complete the following questionnaires, including the care needs scale, WHOQOL-BREF, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Chinese version), Beck Anxiety Inventory (Chinese version), Parent-Child Relationship Quality Inventory, and the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale. These questionnaires were completed before the intervention and directly after the four-week intervention. The participants were completed again one month and three months after the intervention. To understand the users' satisfaction with this APP, only the participants in the experimental group were requested to complete the Inventory of Technology Acceptance Model when completing the questionnaires during the third posttest. The goal was to strengthen parents' symptom management ability and improve their psychosocial functions and children's disease severity.