Start: 2025 – End: 2029

Dionysus

Equipe: Laura Rio (project leader), Alessio De Santo, Prof. Riccardo Pfister (UniGE) and Prof. Adrian Holzer (UniNE)

This project aims to design a digital application that supports parents of premature newborns hospitalized in Swiss neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), ultimately enhancing family outcomes. 

Previous studies have highlighted the significant need for parental support and the negative consequences of inadequate assistance on both infants and parents. An analysis of existing mobile applications showed that none were fully suited to the Swiss context. Therefore, the project seeks to develop an application specifically designed for parents of Swiss NICUs, following a user-centered and iterative approach that involves parents and healthcare professionals at every stage of development within a family centered approach. 

The project is an extension of an ongoing funded research program in which we are designing a digital intervention to support parents of premature neonates hospitalized in the NICU. In past studies we have demonstrated the need for support in Swiss NICU parents and the negative outcomes of inadequate support. We have explored existing accessible mobile applications (apps) and assessed their quality, evidence-based and data protection contents levels, but none of the reviewed apps was transferable to the Swiss context. One single app was accessible in French and acceptable in content and was developed by an American team for US parents however, much of the cultural and practical content was not adapted to our target population. Thus, we are designing an intervention in the form of an app, hereinafter Dionysus, tailored to parents of Swiss NICUs. It follows a user-centered and iterative approach, involving parents and healthcare professionals (HPs), from the early stage of design to the clinical testing (Figure 1). It is supported by the Swiss National Foundation (SNF) for four years and will start in September 2025. This project will be performed in collaboration with Prof Alessio de Santo (PhD) of information systems at HE-Arc, Prof Riccardo Pfister (MD, PhD) Professor of medicine at university of Geneva head of the Neonatology Unit at the University Hospitals of Geneva and Prof Adrian Holzer (PhD) of information systems and the director of the Information Management Institute at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Neuchâtel. 

© image: Lien image

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