Incorporation of Safe Sleep Education Into m-Health Technology

July 9, 2025 updated by: Johns Hopkins University

Development and Incorporation of Safe Sleep Education Into m-Health Technology for the Pediatric Emergency Department

Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID) is the leading cause of death in infants age 28 days to 1 year. Protective factors, such as supine positioning, firm sleep surface, breastfeeding, pacifier use, elimination of soft objects from the sleep space, and avoidance of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs have been shown to decrease the risk. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that healthcare providers model and convey safe sleep practices during patient encounters. Pediatric emergency departments (PED) serve as front-line contact for populations at greatest risk for SUID, however few interventions have been tested in the PED setting. M- Health (mobile health) apps have previously demonstrated the ability to deliver safety education to parents and are well suited for use in the PED given limited clinician time and long wait times. Safety in Seconds (SIS) is a theory based, m-Health injury prevention tool focused on care seat safety and fire safety with previously demonstrated effectiveness in an NIH-funded randomized trial. This study aims to add safe sleep education into the SIS, and subsequently disseminate the app in the PED setting. Integration of safe sleep education into SIS represents an opportunity to increase safe sleep knowledge and practices through a proven effective m-Health intervention. This study addresses this potential by incorporating a previously developed, theory-driven and evidence-based safe sleep education into the SIS app and testing the feasibility of deployment in the PED.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

More than 3500 children die annually in the US from Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID) and sleep-related causes. Among the groups at highest risk for unsafe sleep behaviors and sleep-related infant mortality are racial and ethnic minorities, young mothers, and parents with substance use disorders. Safe sleep education is of great importance for the local community as infant mortality rates are notably high in Baltimore City. In 2017, Baltimore City's infant mortality rate was 1.3 times that of the state of Maryland and 1.5 times greater than the U.S. average. Of these deaths, 16.3% were related to sleep in Baltimore City compared to only 6.5% in the U.S. as a whole. Although attempts at integrating safe sleep education into health care visits have been met with varying success, the investigators have developed a theory- driven and evidence-based safe sleep intervention that increased safe sleep knowledge and practices.

Given that rates of sleep-related deaths have plateaued in the past decade, new prevention strategies are needed. For instance, strategic use of technology-based approaches as well as targeted efforts in the pediatric emergency department (PED) setting merit consideration for several reasons. First, smartphones and mobile applications provide additional opportunities to disseminate health education to parents. M-Health (mobile health) education apps have demonstrated the ability to deliver safety education. However, the efficacy of mobile applications for increasing adherence to safe sleep recommendations has not been tested. Second, there is a growing emphasis on the need for prevention and health education in the emergency department. The emergency department is also particularly well suited for the employment of technology-based interventions, as clinicians have limited time to provide education while patients often face long wait times. In the Johns Hopkins PED, previous research has demonstrated high smartphone use, and acceptability of such interventions. Further, many SUID cases had in emergency departments visits prior to death, which represents a missed opportunity to intervene and educate families about safe sleep, making safe sleep education in the PED imperative. Finally, many urban PEDs, serve a population at high risk for infant mortality due to sociodemographic factors.

To address these gaps and needs, this study proposes to adapt the Safety in Seconds (SIS) app to include safe sleep content and pilot test in the PED setting. The SIS app is a theory-based, m-Health tool that has been previously tested in the PED in an NIH-funded randomized trial that demonstrated its efficacy in improving appropriate car seat and smoke alarm knowledge and use. This app provides computer-generated, tailored messages to parents. There are three steps involved in the tool: (1) assessment; (2) data processing; and (3) feedback. Parents complete an assessment in the app and the answers are processed by a computer program to link each answer to specific theory-driven messages that are responsive to parents' reported beliefs and practices. These messages are used to produce a computer-generated, tailored report with persuasive and informative messages about safety topics. Building on this SIS app with proven effectiveness, the goal of this project is to incorporate evidence based, previously developed safe sleep education into the app and encourage implementation of safe sleep practices among families presenting to the PED.

Aim 1: Digitize existing educational content on infant safe sleep recommendations and incorporate into the SIS app (following the previously utilized process for the current app content on car seat safety and fire safety).

Aim 2: Pilot test the updated m-Health tool - SIS 2.0 - which incorporates new infant safe sleep content (from Aim 1) with existing injury prevention content on child passenger safety and fire safety. Feedback will be obtained from parents through follow-up surveys and interviews. Hypothesis: use of the SIS app for provision of safe sleep education will be effective in conveying this education.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

150

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Maryland
      • Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21287
        • Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • English speaking caregivers over 18 of infants age 0-4 months
  • Use a smart phone

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Non English speaking
  • Under 18 years of age or unable to consent for themselves
  • High acuity, critical care needs of infant patient that would limit participation during initial PED visit.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Safe Sleep Education
The intervention group will receive safe sleep education via the Safety in Seconds mobile app.
Behavioral: Safety in Seconds mobile app: Safe Sleep Education
The Safety in Seconds mobile app is a platform previously developed to deliver targeted injury prevention education. This intervention will be testing the effectiveness of a newly developed educational module on safe sleep education.
Active Comparator: Car seat safety
The attention matched control group will receive car seat safety education via the Safety in Seconds mobile app.
Behavioral: Safety in Seconds mobile app: Car Seat Safety Education
The Safety in Seconds mobile app is a platform previously developed to deliver targeted injury prevention education, including fire and car seat safety.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Safe sleep behaviors as assessed by survey developed by study team
Time Frame: Baseline, 1 month
Safe sleep behaviors will be measured by the number of participants who adapt safe sleep behaviors.
Baseline, 1 month

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Johns Hopkins University

Collaborators

American SIDS Institute

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Mary Beth Howard, MD, MSc, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

July 1, 2025

Primary Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

April 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 27, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 27, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

October 10, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 14, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 9, 2025

Last Verified

July 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IRB00362756

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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