Exploring Amico H impact: A promising tool to promote children’s knowledge and adherence to medical procedures

Journal title PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE
Author/s Giulia Perasso, Eleonora Picco, Pierpaolo Di Bitonto, Clio Sozzani, Alberto Martelli, Massimo Miglioretti, Chiara Ripamonti
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2023/3
Language English Pages 17 P. 137-153 File size 362 KB
DOI 10.3280/PDS2023-003008
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mHealth (e.g., the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for delivering healthcare services) has become a crucial resource in pediatric healthcare, providing children with psychoeducation and distraction, and enhancing treatment compliance. Amico H, a newly developed application, is targeted at ameliorating children’s and parents’ experience of pediat-ric medical procedures and communication with healthcare professionals. With the virtual en-vironment of a castle, Amico H is a mHealth app for children, offering interactive games and psychoeducational support during medical treatments. The present experience explores the im-pact of the Amico H prototype on children, teens, and parents in terms of pleasantness, usabil-ity, and usefulness. Method: A total of 99 children and teens aged 4-19 years (10.53 ± 3.69 years; 73% female), both hospitalized (28%) or not and N=32 caregivers (72% mothers) re-sponded to an ad-hoc survey on the app’s user experience. Descriptive analyses and group comparisons have been computed. Results: Findings highlight that children and caregivers were highly amused and satisfied by Amico H. Compared to teens, children needed more help from adults in the use of the app. Conclusion: All the results indicate that Amico H is a pow-erful tool to ameliorate pediatric hospitalization experience and to promote children’s knowledge about health and medical procedures. The need for age-specific versions of Amico H emerged. Future directions and limits are discussed.

Keywords: mHealth, health communication, pediatric healthcare, hospital, children, parents.

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Giulia Perasso, Eleonora Picco, Pierpaolo Di Bitonto, Clio Sozzani, Alberto Martelli, Massimo Miglioretti, Chiara Ripamonti, Exploring Amico H impact: A promising tool to promote children’s knowledge and adherence to medical procedures in "PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE" 3/2023, pp 137-153, DOI: 10.3280/PDS2023-003008