English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Smartphones demonstrate growing popularity as a delivery mechanism for pediatric interventions for multiple reasons. First, smartphone ownership is growing exponentially in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2018) and internationally (Poushter, 2016). Many now rely on smartphones as their sole source of Internet access (Smith, 2015), particularly users who are younger, minorities, and of lower socioeconomic status (Pew Research Center, 2018). Smartphones therefore promote access to large numbers of diverse groups, and do not require users to have costly broadband and/or computer access nor to take the time to physically sit down in front of a computer to complete intervention tasks. Second, smartphones tend to be carried throughout the day, promoting in-the-moment and ongoing opportunities for assessment and intervention (Proudfoot, 2013). Smartphones therefore also represent a delivery mechanism that is already highly used in daily life, promoting the likelihood of higher intervention use, and potentially overcome barriers to traditional delivery mechanisms, such as forgetfulness (Mohr et al., 2010). However, while smartphones are growing in popularity as daily tools and as a delivery mechanism for evidence-based pediatric interventions (Fedele, Cushing, Fritz, Amaro, & Ortega, 2017), concerns are present in the mobile health (mHealth) literature around their efficacy for specific pediatric populations (Grist, Porter, & Stallard, 2017). The present work by Schwebel et al. (2017) used a nonrandomized trial methodology to evaluate a smartphone-based virtual reality (VR) intervention to increase pedestrian safety in 56 schoolchildren in China (Schwebel et al, 2017). This work contributes to the literature on smartphones as a delivery mechanism and provides an opportunity to consider current practices in mHealth evaluations, including (1) strengths, (2) limitations, and (3) usability testing as a means to increase generalizability. This study has multiple strengths. First, the methodology is described clearly, with enough detail provided around the design to allow for replicability. Unfortunately, likely to comply with journal constraints in manuscript length, studies often sacrifice clear descriptions of the design. This gap in describing a critical methodological aspect of mHealth interventions typically limits generalizability and insights into the potential mechanisms impacting outcomes. Second, the authors used multimethod outcomes, such that pre/post comparisons could be made with both coded behavioral observations and child self-report. This is unfortunately only applied to roughly half of the sample (25 and 24 children’s actual pedestrian behavior was captured preintervention and postintervention, respectively; it is unclear if these children differ in any way from those not captured) but bolsters the significant findings for changes in self-reported data. Finally, the authors highlight that their intervention has minimal cultural specificity. While slight design modifications would be necessary for deployment in other countries and cultures (e.g., language translation), the majority of the described design appears to allow for evaluation and implementation for schoolchildren outside of China. This is an important

journal of pediatric psychology

JPP Student Journal Club Commentary: Smartphone-Delivered Interventions for Pediatric Populations: Improving Methodologies to Address Concerns of Feasibility and Efficacy