The effect of a mobile application developed for the home care of a premature baby on the mother's baby care, self-efficiency and maternal attachment

This randomized controlled trial study was conducted to develop the PreBaby mobile application in order to provide information and support for the home care of premature babies and to examine the effect of the application on parental self-efficacy, mother-infant attachment, and the mother's baby care knowledge and skills. The research took place in two stages, the first stage included the development of the mobile application. To determine the topics that will be included in the content of the PreBaby mobile application, the "Knowledge Needs Determination Questionnaire" was applied to 71 mothers between December 1, 2021 and March 15, 2022. In line with the needs analysis, the topics to be included in PreBaby were determined, the design and software of the application were carried out and the PreBaby mobile application was developed. This stage is completed after testing the validity of the PreBaby mobile application. The second phase of the research included evaluating the effectiveness of the mobile application. The application was carried out with 48 mothers(Intervention group = 24 mothers, Control group = 24 mothers) with mid and late preterm babies were born at Ankara University Faculty of Medicine Cebeci Hospital between 15 March and 15 August 2023 and received treatment and care in the NICU service. Data were collected using "Mother and Baby Introductory Information Form", "Baby Care Knowledge Evaluation Form", "Baby Care Skill Evaluation Checklist", "Parenting Self- Efficancy Scale" and "Mother Attachment Scale". While the mothers were discharged from the hospital, a pre-test was conducted with " Parenting Self- Efficancy Scale " and " Mother Attachment Scale ". During the home visit 1 month after discharge, a post-test was performed with the " Parenting Self- Efficancy Scale " and " Mother Attachment Scale " and the "Baby Care Knowledge Evaluation Form" and "Baby Care Skill Evaluation Checklist" were filled in. In the study, descriptive characteristics of babies and mothers in the application and control groups, such as week of gestation, hospitalization diagnosis, birth weight, maternal age, educational status, and having baby care training, were found to be similar (p>0.05). Mothers in the intervention group had parental self-efficacy (Intervention Group= 84.58±4.68, Control Group= 78.37±4.98), knowledge (Intervention group= 89.58±4.36, Control group = 66.87±8.66) and skill scores (Intervention group=72.66 ±6.83, Control group=49.08±4.53) were found to be statistically significantly higher than the control group (p<0.05). There were no statistically significant difference in maternal attachment between mothers in the intervention and control groups (p>0.05). The rate of diaper dermatitis in the babies of mothers in the intervention group was found to be statistically significantly lower than the babies in the control group (p <0.05). As a result, the PreBaby mobile application was found to be effective in providing education and counseling to mothers in the home care of premature babies. The education and counseling provided to mothers through the PreBaby mobile application increased their knowledge, skills and self-efficacy. Mobile applications can be useful in supporting mothers in difficult and stressful situations, as well as in gaining knowledge and skills, by positively affecting the learning process. It can be used to increase the basic care skills of parents of premature babies to reduce health problems that may occur in babies such as diaper dermatitis and oral candidates, to provide information and consultancy regarding baby care.