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CompletedNCT02581800Updated Oct 12, 2018

Effect and Experience of PreHomeCare of Preterm Infants Using Telecommunication and Smartphone Application

An interventional study of App group in Infants, Premature, Breastfeeding and Telecommunication, sponsored by Mai-Britt Hägi-Pedersen. Completed at 4 sites in Denmark. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2018-10-12.

Sponsored by Mai-Britt Hägi-Pedersen · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
186
Allocation
Randomized
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Background: Premature infants and their patents are discharged earlier from hospital and sent home in early in-homecare programs. Research regarding the use of health IT is needed to say, whether the use of videoconference and Smartphone application is a viable option to address the parents need for support in relations to early discharge.

Aim: Test and explore early in-homecare (PreHomeCare) with videoconference and mobile application versus hospital consultations.

Method: Main study; a randomized controlled intervention study with the hypothesis; parent of premature infants who have access to electronic knowledge and participatory guidance 24-7: increases proportion of exclusive breastfeeding, Improves parent/infant interaction, enhances confidence and increases knowledge.

Sub study 1; a field study. Sub study 2; an interview study. Perspectives: It is expected that this project will be an argument in development of care for premature infants and telemedicine use in the future

Read the detailed description

Effect and experience of PreHomeCare of preterm infants using telecommunication and Smartphone application: A randomized intervention study.

Premature infants and their patents are discharged earlier from hospital and sent home in early in-homecare programs.

Effect studies of early in-homecare point towards that premature infants have lower risk of infections under the period of tube feeding, higher parental satisfaction and indicate that early in-homecare of premature infants benefit of home visits with fewer readmissions and less unscheduled support, shorter length of hospital stay and longer provision of breast milk. Standard procedure in early in-homecare is home visits but in regions of Denmark with large distances to the parent/infant this is not possible. No studies have until now offered 24-7 hours home visit support. Further research regarding the use of health IT is needed to say, whether the use of videoconference (participatory guidance) and Smartphone application (knowledge and data registration) is a viable option to address the parents need for support in relations to early discharge.

Main Study: A randomized controlled intervention study. The aim is to test the effect of the use of video communication and mobile application on exclusive breastfeeding, parent/infant interaction and parental confidence with the premature infants after PreHomeCare.

Hypothesis; Compared to parents of premature infants who receive hospital consultations, the parents of premature infants who have access to electronic knowledge and participatory guidance 24-7:

  1. Increases proportion of exclusive breastfeeding.
  2. Improves parent/infant interaction (MABISC-mother and baby interaction scale).
  3. Enhances the families' feeling of confidence in caring for their infant (KPCS - Karitane parenting confidence scale).
  4. Increases parent's knowledge with regarding the premature infant and the care. Parents will be randomized to either intervention or control group via simple randomization procedure.

The intervention group will receive a mobile application and videoconference system. The application contains three parts; 1) knowledge, 2) video contact/participatory guidance and 3) data registration.

Sample Size: Applying a significance level of 5%, a two-sided two-sample proportions test revealed that a sample size of 39 in each group maintains a power of 80% to detect the difference consisting of 55% vs. 40% breastfeeding women in the two groups after 4 weeks conditional on 66% breastfeeding at discharge. This corresponds to a sample size of 65 at randomisation. To compensate for the design effect ICC(0.01) the total sample size needed is thus approximately 160 preterm infants, 80 in each group.

Inclusion criteria: Infants who fulfil criteria for early in-home care. GA > 34+0, No need for monitoring, tube feeding and started breastfeeding/bottle feeding, Danish speaking or English speaking patents (but understand the Danish text in the application).

Exclusion criteria: Infants who do not fulfil criteria for early in-home care and parents, who require extra observations of the parent-infant relationship.

Data analysis; the results of the intervention and control group will be compared and analysed following "intention to treat" principle.

Qualitative evaluation:

Sub study 1: A field observational study: The aim is describe what characterizes nursing practice in PreHomeCare from the parents' angle in home around video consultations. Method will be based on Spradley "participant observation". The focus for the observation is the nurses' communication, how is her act on the screen etc. The field observations are expected to enlighten the characteristics of the nursing practice with a systematic description of PreHomeCare setting using video consultations. The prose text will be analysed following Ricoeur.

Sub study 2: An interview study: The aim is to explore how parents of premature infants experience PreHomeCare with use of video communication and mobile application. The study will be planned and conducted with inspiration from Kvale and Brinkmann´s instructions. The main focus for the interview will be to uncover the main question: "How did you experience PreHomeCare?" with a particular focus on what have been especially meaningful for the parents under PreHomeCare. The verbatim transcribed material will be analysed following Ricoeur interpretations theory.

Perspectives: This study will access new knowledge on the effect and experience with PreHomeCare. It will give insight in what is needed to make clear goals for the quality of the treatment and care for premature infants and parents in the last part of the admission/PreHomeCare. It is expected that this project will be an argument in further development of care for premature infants and telemedicine use in the future. The increased effectiveness can address challenges and help relocate economic and professional health services.

02

Conditions studied

  • Infants, Premature
  • Breastfeeding
  • Telecommunication
  • Patient Discharge
  • Nursing
03

In context

Lead sponsor

This is the only study on the registry with Mai-Britt Hägi-Pedersen as lead sponsor.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
Child (0–17), Adult (18–64), Older adult (65+)
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

  • Infants who fulfil criteria for early in-home care. GA > 34+0, No need for monitoring, tube feeding and started breastfeeding/bottle feeding, Danish speaking or English speaking patients (but understand the Danish text in the application).

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Infants who do not fulfil criteria for early in-home care and parents, who require extra observation of the par-ent-infant relationship.
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Health services research
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
186 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • No intervention
    Control group

    The control group includes hospital consultations (usual care) on the hospital 2-3 times a week (1-2 hours) and the possibility to call the neonatal ward 24 hours a day all week until the infant gets full nutrition from the breast or bottle and gains weight. The parents register nutrition on a paper between the visits to the hospital.

  • Experimental
    App group/intervention group

    The intervention group will receive the Smartphone application at inclusion time and learn to use it in the hos-pital. When the families go home they will use the application and receive planned video consultations 2-3 times a week and the possibility to call the neonatal ward 24 hours a day all week whenever needed, until the infant gets full nutrition from the breast or bottle and gains weight. Parents will borrow a baby weight to weigh the baby at home.

    Other: App group

Interventions

  • OtherApp group
06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Proportion of breastfeeding

    Time frame: one month after discharge

Secondary outcomes

  1. Parents feeling of confidence

    Time frame: one month after discharge

  2. Parent/child interaction

    Time frame: one month after discharge

  3. Active knowledge concerning the premature infant

    Time frame: one month after discharge

07

Study locations

4 sites
  • Herning Neonatal
    Herning, 7400, Denmark
  • Neonatal
    Næstved, 4700, Denmark
  • Neonatal
    Roskilde, 4000, Denmark
  • Neonatal
    Viborg, 8800, Denmark
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Hagi-Pedersen MB, Dessau RB, Norlyk A, Stanchev H, Kronborg H. Comparison of video and in-hospital consultations during early in-home care for premature infants and their families: A randomised trial. J Telemed Telecare. 2022 Jan;28(1):24-36. doi: 10.1177/1357633X20913411. Epub 2020 Mar 30. PubMed 32228143 ↗
  • Hagi-Pedersen MB, Norlyk A, Dessau R, Stanchev H, Kronborg H. Multicentre randomised study of the effect and experience of an early inhome programme (PreHomeCare) for preterm infants using video consultation and smartphone applications compared with inhospital consultations: protocol of the PreHomeCare study. BMJ Open. 2017 Mar 9;7(3):e013024. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013024. PubMed 28279994 ↗
09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Oct 12, 2018, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT02581800
Lead sponsor
Mai-Britt Hägi-Pedersen
Responsible party
Mai-Britt Hägi-Pedersen (MSN, ICU nurse, phd student, Naestved Hospital) — Sponsor-investigator
First posted
Oct 21, 2015
Start date
Nov 2015
Primary completion
Oct 2018
Completion
Oct 2018
Last update
Oct 12, 2018

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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