SynthesisThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2020
Digital interventions for parents of acutely ill children and their treatment-seeking behaviour: a systematic review.
Synthesis in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Video Tutorials to Empower Caregivers of Ill Children and Reduce Health Care Utilization: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2023Trial
- Striving to make the right decision when seeking emergency care: patients' stories of navigating support alternatives in a digital society, a qualitative study.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Clinical Nurses' Perceptions of Digital Nursing Technology: A Qualitative Analysis Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB).Nursing open · 2025Article
- Digital health solutions for caregivers of children experiencing acute pain: a scoping review.Pain reports · 2025Review
- Digital healthcare interventions to support parents with acutely ill children at home: A systematic review.PLOS digital health · 2025Article
- Safety netting advice for acutely ill children presenting to ambulatory care: exploring parents' opinions, ideas, and expectations through focus group interviews.BMC primary care · 2025Article
- Article
- Bridging evidence-to-care gaps with mHealth: Designing a symptom checker for parents accessing knowledge translation resources on acute children's illnesses in a smartphone application.PEC innovation · 2023Article
- Determinants of Laypersons' Trust in Medical Decision Aids: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR human factors · 2022Article
- A scoping review on the use and usefulness of online symptom checkers and triage systems: How to proceed?Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- The Utility of an Online Forward Triage Tool During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Health Care Provider and Health Authority Perspectives.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Characteristics of Acute Childhood Illness Apps for Parents: Environmental Scan.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Impact of Digital Educational Interventions to Support Parents Caring for Acutely Ill Children at Home and Factors That Affect Their Use: Protocol for a Systematic Review.JMIR research protocols · 2021Article
- The Age of Hubris.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundConsultations for self-limiting infections in children are increasing. It has been proposed that digital technology could be used to enable parents' decision making in terms of self-care and treatment seeking.
aimTo evaluate the evidence that digital interventions facilitate parents deciding whether to self-care or seek treatment for acute illnesses in children. DESIGN AND
settingSystematic review of studies undertaken worldwide.
methodSearches of MEDLINE and EMBASE were made to identify studies (of any design) published between database inception and January 2019 that assessed digital interventions for parents of children (from any healthcare setting) with acute illnesses. The primary outcome of interest was whether the use of digital interventions reduced the use of urgent care services.
resultsThree studies were included in the review. They assessed two apps and one website: Children's On-Call - a US advice-only app; Should I See a Doctor? - a Dutch self-triage app for any acute illness; and Strategy for Off-Site Rapid Triage (SORT) for Kids - a US self-triage website for influenza-like illness. None of the studies involved parents during intervention development and it was shown that many parents did not find the two apps easy to use. The sensitivity of self-triage interventions was 84% for Should I See a Doctor? compared with nurse triage, and 93.3% for SORT for Kids compared with the need for emergency-department intervention; however, both had lower specificity (74% and 13%, respectively). None of the interventions demonstrated reduced use of urgent-care services.
conclusionThere is little evidence to support the use of digital interventions to help parent and/or carers looking after children with acute illness. Future research should involve parents during intervention development, and adequately powered trials are needed to assess the impact of such interventions on health services and the identification of children who are seriously ill.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.