Mobile Coach for Parents of Children and Adolescents with Chronic Pain

PROJECT SUMMARY Mobile Coach for Parents of Children and Adolescents with Chronic Pain Chronic pain or pain that persists for months or more is conservatively estimated to affect to of children and adolescents around the world making it a distressingly common experience For parents witnessing their children in pain is often a heart breaking experience Further the stress among parents of children with chronic pain poses a significant mental health concern as they experience significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression relative to parents of healthy children Further childhood pain brings significant direct and indirect costs from healthcare utilization and lost wages due to taking time off work to care for the child Yet few interventions for parents of children and adolescents with pain have been developed to address the unmet needs of this group Several approaches have been found to be effective at helping adults manage the stress of parenting a child with a chronic health condition including mindful based stress reduction MBSR However such time intensive group interventions are difficult to disseminate with high attrition rates and limited transportability We propose a new product which will build upon an established core technology platform BodiMojo Parent Buddy The Parent Buddy will draw on evidence based approaches to deliver an intervention designed to help parents respond to their childandapos s pain and to decrease stress through mindfulness based parenting skills A major innovation of the proposed product is the development of proprietary Empathic Adaptive Dialog Manager EADM based on a theory of emotional appraisal The EADM technology is designed to provide dynamic interaction and relevant content tailored for parents based on their coping skills and perceived stress This approach will deliver real time strategies for coping and communication with a child in pain and self management parenting skills e g take deep breaths seek support or learn to let it go The development of an easily disseminated mHealth intervention Parent Buddy could bridge an important gap in available parenting support for children who suffer with pain Furthermore such a program has the potential to deliver a highly cost effective program to a wide range of parents The Phase I proposal will evaluate the feasibility of the Parent Buddy for parents of children ages and adolescents ages years who experience chronic pain through formative research with parents and health providers the creation of develop a BodiMojo Parent Buddy prototype and a day pilot test with parents of children and adolescents with chronic pain and acceptability by health providers PROJECT NARRATIVE The objective of this proposal is to create a mobile intervention the BodiMojo Parent Buddy for parents of children and adolescents with chronic pain Chronic pain affects to of children and brings significant direct and indirect costs from healthcare utilization and lost wages The Parent Buddy technology delivers relevant real time coping skills to help parents respond to their childandapos s pain and decrease stress If the BodiMojo Parent Buddy is successful the public health significance will be considerable and may potentially improve child health outcomes across numerous childhood health conditions associated with chronic pain