Infant Conditions, Infant Development, Postpartum Depression, Pregnancy
Conditions
Keywords
chatbot, health information, racial/ethnic health disparities, maternal and child health, artificial intelligence, question-answering models
Brief summary
Rosie the Chatbot is an educational chatbot that moms can have on their computers or cellphones and will work by moms typing in their questions about pregnancy, health, infant milestones, and other variety of health related topics and receiving back a response immediately. Rosie only provides information from verified sources such as children's hospitals, health organizations and government agencies. Rosie does not ask moms to provide any personal information on her or her child, her chat is completely confidential, it works in English and Spanish and will be free.
Detailed description
This study will examine whether the use of a chatbot to impart health information to minority women during pregnancy and postpartum period improves health care seeking behavior and maternal and infant health outcomes. This study does not involve administration of an investigational intervention and therefore poses minimal risk to participants. Aim 1: Develop technology for a "chatbot" that will provide health information support to vulnerable mothers the moment they need it. Aim 2: Evaluate the use of Rosie on maternal and infant outcomes. Aim 3: Release an open-source packet for the construction of a chatbot. * Participants in the study will be randomly assigned into one of two groups, Rosie the Chatbot group (treatment group) and Book Club group (control group). * Participants in the Rosie the Chatbot Group will be taking a pre-test health survey, mid-test health survey, and post-test health survey. In addition, they will be expected to actively use the chatbot app by asking questions related to maternal and infant health and selecting "thumbs up or thumbs down" to provide feedback for questions' response and use the features (video library, resources page, frequently asked questions (FAQ), and daily syllabus). * Participants in the Book Club Group will be taking a pre-test health survey, mid-test health survey, and post-test health survey. In addition, they will receive a monthly children's book, which they are expected to read with baby if parenting or individually if pregnant.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALRosie the Chatbot
Participants in the intervention group will be using the chatbot to ask questions related to the mom and baby's health, provide feedback "selecting thumbs up or thumbs down" on the questions' response, and use the features (video library, resources page, frequently asked questions (FAQ), and daily syllabus). In addition, participants will be taking a pre-test health survey, mid-test health survey, and post-test health survey.
Sponsors
University of Maryland, College Park
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
FEMALE
Age
14 Years to 99 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Age 14 years and older * Racial minority women * Pregnant or has an infant \< 6 months * Must be able to read English or Spanish
Exclusion criteria
* Mother younger than 14 years of age at time of child's birth. * Non-hispanic white
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Maternal postpartum depression | 12 months post randomization | The investigators will utilize the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Scale to measure maternal depression. This scale can range from 0 to 27, since each of the 9 items can be scored from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day). Higher scores indicate worse depression severity. |
| Number of emergency room visits | 12 months post randomization | The investigators will measure the number of visits to the emergency room. |
| Attendance of well-baby visits (preventive healthcare visits) | 12 months post randomization | The investigators will measure the number of well-baby visits. |
Countries
United States
Contacts
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORQuynh C Nguyen, PhD
University of Maryland
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORElizabeth M Aparicio, PhD, LCSW-C
University of Maryland
Outcome results
None listed