Madilyn Jimpkoski
Research Mentor(s): Lizbeth Benson
Mentor Department: Survey Research Center, Data Science for Dynamic Intervention Decision-Making Center
Authors: Madilyn Jimpkoski, Irene Tung, Xuhai Xu, Emily Capellari, Lizbeth Benson
Session: Session 6 (3:00pm – 3:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 1
Abstract
Becoming a parent is a developmental period where adults face new, diverse experiences some of which are positive and some of which are stressful. For example, pregnant people experience increased time demands (e.g., attending prenatal appointments), disruptions to sleep, biological changes, and new social roles and responsibilities. These new challenges can result in a substantial psychological, social, and emotional toll on transitioning parents. To help expectant parents cope with these challenges, there are several evidence-based interventions designed to teach emotional awareness and emotion regulation (ER) skills. These skills include mindfulness, deep-breathing, cognitive reappraisal, progressive muscle relaxation, and self-compassion. The ER skill trainings are often in-person which can result in barriers to access due to lack of transportation, time constraints, and financial resources. To improve the reach of ER skill interventions, mobile health (mHealth) technologies can be leveraged to provide people with easy-to-access support in their daily lives. Even though there are mHealth technologies that are used to teach ER skills, little is known about how to design mHealth technologies that are tailored to the unique needs of first-time parents. To address this gap, a scoping review will be conducted to 1) identify and characterize existing mobile applications that target emotional awareness and regulation during pregnancy and the transition to parenthood, 2) evaluate how existing mobile applications integrate pregnancy- and postpartum- specific contexts and challenges, and 3) synthesize evidence regarding the effectiveness, user engagement, and implementation outcomes. The scoping review involves many steps including creating eligibility criteria, conducting a literature search, reviewing literature to determine if they are applicable, and extracting the data from the appropriate literature. The review will conclude with a discussion of future design opportunities and challenges for digitally delivered ER training tailored for new parents.
