Design, implementation, and evaluation of a web based eHealth intervention to support parents in caring for premature infants

Develop and assess an e-health intervention for preterm infant care using IPDAS standards

The study is a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial. Parents of preterm infants will be randomly assigned using block randomization to either the intervention group (50) and the control group (50)

The study site is a hospital. blinding methods are used: Clinical Caregiver The identities of the infants and parents are concealed from the clinical caregiver, and the caregiver is unaware of their group assignments. Participants Both groups receive usual care, but the intervention group additionally benefits from an electronic health intervention. Neither group is aware of the other group's intervention. The aim is to investigate the effect of the intervention on the length of infant hospital stay, parental sense of parenting efficacy, and infant discharge readiness at three time points.

Inclusion Criteria: Preterm infants: Gestational age less than 37 completed weeks of pregnancy Absence of congenital anomalies, major physical illnesses, and neurological deficits Parents of preterm infants: Age over 18 years Education level of high school or above Having access to the internet No history of previous babies being admitted to the NICU Exit criteria: Death of the infant during the study Referral of the infant to other centers for treatment Withdrawal of parents from participation in the study Parents working in NICU

The control group will consist of parents who receive standard education and care. The intervention group will receive, in addition to standard care, an e-health intervention

1: Length of stay of the preterm infant 2: Parenting competence of parents of these infants 3: Discharge preparedness

The selected samples will be divided into two equal groups using the random block method of paired permutations. For this purpose, 50 blocks of the two combinations AB and BA will be randomly selected. Then the samples will be assigned to two groups A and B. This is done by first identifying all 4-block blocks that include two codes A and B (6 blocks), and then randomly selecting blocks with replacement using a random number table (15 blocks). The blocks are a 60-element sequence of codes A and B, each of which is randomly assigned to one of the control and intervention groups

Since this research is conducted on human subjects, informed consent will be obtained from all participants to participate in the research. However, all research results will be reported in aggregate form without mentioning the identifying information of the participants. For blinding the clinical caregiver, the following procedure will be followed. The initial assessment, before assigning preterm infants and their parents to the control and intervention groups, will be performed by the attending physician and reported to the researcher. During the intervention, the names of all infants and their parents will be hidden and displayed to the clinical caregiver, and the attending physician will not have any information about their identities. During the three-month follow-up, the study-related assessment will also be performed and reported by the clinical caregiver. Since the names of the control and intervention groups are not available to the clinical caregiver, and they have no information about which group they belong to. The blinding procedure for participants is as follows: Both groups will receive the usual training and care (including educational pamphlets in the NICU and training by nurses), and the intervention group will additionally use an electronic health intervention. Neither group will have information about the nature of the training and care provided to the other group.