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The following is a summary of “An mHealth Intervention to Support Psychosocial Well-Being of Racial and Ethnically Diverse Families in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,” published in the May 2025 issue of Journal of Pediatrics by Garfield et al. 

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to assess the effectiveness of an mHealth neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) parent support app in improving psychosocial psychiatry well-being, including reducing stress and anxiety, enhancing parenting competence, and increasing social support among parents of preterm infants in 3 Chicago-area NICUs.  

They used a time-lapsed quasiexperimental design, enrolling control participants first, followed by intervention participants. Data were collected at 3 time points: NICU admission (AD), discharge (DC), and 30 days post-DC (DC+30). Validated measures assessed parenting sense of competence, stress, anxiety, and social support.  

The results showed that intention-to-treat (ITT) analyses included 400 participants (156 intervention; 244 control). After adjusting for covariates, parenting sense of competence significantly increased (AD–DC, DC+30), stress and anxiety decreased (stress: AD–DC+30; anxiety: AD–DC, DC+30), and social support improved (AD–DC), with no differences between study arms. Secondary analysis of 156 parents with infants born before 32 weeks gestational age showed a greater stress reduction (AD–DC+30) in the intervention group vs control (P = .03). Among Black intervention participants, total social support scores (AD–DC) increased significantly (P = .01), including emotional/informational support (P = .02) and positive social interaction subscales (P = .02).  

Investigators concluded that this novel mHealth intervention reduced stress and anxiety and increased social support among high-risk parent subsets in the NICU, potentially improving outcomes for infants born preterm. 

Source: jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(25)00010-1/abstract