Abstract
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published Recommendations for a Safe Infant Sleeping Environment; however, parents still report frequent use of dangerous infant sleep practices. An online computer program was developed and piloted to investigate whether parents could be taught to create safe sleep environments using online training. Computerized safe sleep environments created by parents of children 0 to 23 months were assessed for compliance with the AAP Sleep Recommendations. Using a pre- and posttest design, the present study investigated the effectiveness of online instructions (adapted standard of care) and a computerized behavioral skills training package, which included instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Additional pre- and posttests assessed parents’ ability to identify sleep risks in 3 pictures to assess generalization of skills learned. Overall, participants demonstrated significant improvements from pre- to posttest across both treatment conditions on the creation of a safe sleep environment and on the free response identification of risks in 3 sleep environments. Performance did not significantly differ between the treatment groups. Results suggest considerable promise for technology-aided approaches in training parents to create a safe sleep environment.
Implications for Impact Statement
Creating safe infant sleep environments is important and necessary in reducing sudden and unexpected infant deaths. In this online study, caregivers created safer infant sleep environments and identified more sleep environment risks after computer-based training and when using a sleep safety checklist. Providing access to this computer-based training and/or sleep safety checklist can teach caregivers about infant sleep safety and may result in safer infant sleep environments.
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