Development and pilot testing of the Baby-Feed web application for healthcare professionals and parents to improve infant diets

Background: Diet is key in preventing rapid infant weight gain but adherence to infant dietary recommendations is difficult to follow and low in adherence.Objective: Develop and pilot test the Baby-Feed web application for parents and healthcare professionals to easily evaluate infant diets and provide immediate feedback to promote adherence to current infant dietary recommendations.Methods: Baby-Feed was developed following the ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) model. It was pilot tested among two clinicians and 25 parents of infants aged 4 to 12 months that had a scheduled well-child visit at a community health center in Miami. After 2 weeks of using Baby-Feed, parents completed a feasibility, acceptability, satisfaction, and usability questionnaire. Parents and clinicians were also asked to suggest improvements. Descriptive analysis included frequency and median (25th, 75th percentiles). One-sample binomial tests was used to evaluate if feasible, acceptable, satisfactory, and usable. Results: Twenty-three parents completed the evaluation (all were mothers), 31.0 (26.0, 33.0) years-old, 96% Hispanic, 83% had >= high school education, with 1.5 (1.0, 2.0) children. Infants' age was 6.1 (4.0, 9.0) months and 57% were boys. Binomial tests indicated that most parents (greater than87%) agreed that Baby-Feed was easy to use, learn, quick, would use it again, rated it as 4/5 stars. They used it greater than 1 times per week (p < 0.001). Parents suggested improving the visuals (more icons, colors, and pictures) and images of portion sizes, highlighting missing fields, being able to view/open it on their phones, and adding recipes and more information. The two clinicians (a pediatrician and a physician assistant) suggested to be open-access and to add more infant nutrition information. Conclusion: Baby-Feed was feasible, usable, satisfactory, and acceptable. It could be used as a tool to easily evaluate infant diets in the healthcare setting to provide immediate feedback.

Automated summary

This study developed and pilot tested a web application called Baby-Feed, which aims to evaluate infant diets and provide immediate feedback to promote adherence to current infant dietary recommendations. The results of the pilot test showed that Baby-Feed was feasible, usable, satisfactory, and acceptable. However, there were also suggestions for improvements from parents and clinicians.