Effectiveness of "home-but not alone" mobile-health application on parental outcomes

INTERVENTION: Participating couples are randomly allocated to one of two groups: Control group: Parents continue to receive standard care only, which involves postnatal support by nurses and lactation consultants while the parents are in the hospital and routine follow‐up visit with their obstetrician. Intervention group: Parents continue to receive standard care, but are also given one months access to the “Home‐but not alone”, Mobile‐Health Application (M‐Health App). Participants are advised to actively use the App and interact with fellow parents via App. The features of the App are as follows: 1. Asynchronous communication, where the participants can exchange messages and photos to consult midwife pertaining to their queries as well as peer discussion among themselves. This will enable them to receive timely and reliable support in the early postpartum period. The participants will be pre‐informed that midwife will respond to their queries once a day for four weeks till they have an access to the M‐Health App. However, parents will be reinforced to remain vigilant that this App is an adjunct support to the support received from the hospital and in case of any emergency the hospital will still be the main point of contact. 2. A knowledge‐based content consisting of information materials specially focused in enhancing parental self‐efficacy, parenting satisfaction, decreasing anxiety and postnatal depression and awareness on social support from both formal and informal sources as well as videos and audios with a search function for easier access to information will be provided. 3. Push Notifications will be automatically issued every 24 hours from the day of discharge from the hospital (Day 4) till day 10 after the birth of the baby. The aim is to provide new parents with information regarding commonly asked questions such as breastfeeding, baby’s bowel moments and jaundice. Participants in both groups are contact by telephone after four weeks (post‐test) when the access CONDITION: Postnatal Parental Outcomes ; Not Applicable ; Postnatal Parental Outcomes PRIMARY OUTCOME: Parenting self‐efficacy is measured using the Parent Efficacy Scale (PES) at baseline and 4 weeks. SECONDARY OUTCOME: 1. Parenting satisfaction is measured using the What Being the Parent of a New Baby is Like (WBPL) questionnaire at baseline and 4 weeks; 2. Satisfaction with social support is measured using the Perceived Social Support for Parenting (PSSP) questionnaire at baseline and 4 weeks; 3. Postnatal depression is measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at baseline and 4 weeks INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Aged 21 years or above 2. Able to read and speak English 3. Have a smart gadget with internet connection to download the M‐Health Application named "Home but not Alone" 4. Will be staying in Singapore for first four weeks after the birth of their new‐born 5. Have a full‐term health baby who will be discharged home with the parents 6. In a physical and emotional stable condition at the time of data collection