Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 18, 2025
Measuring the Functional Abilities of Children Aged 3-6 Years Old with Observational Methods and Computer Tools
Published on: June 20, 2020
Web-based follow-up tool (ePIPARI) of preterm infants-study protocol for feasibility and performance
Tiina Saarinen1, Milla Ylijoki2,3, Liisa Lehtonen2
1Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, Turku, Finland. tiina.m.saarinen@utu.fi.
Insights
Preterm infants require comprehensive follow-up. The ePIPARI (electronic Pre- and Postnatal Infant Assessment and Referral Instrument) tool offers web-based assessments to identify infants and parents needing support, improving developmental outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal Medicine
- Pediatric Development
- Digital Health
Background:
- Preterm infants face elevated risks for post-discharge health and developmental issues.
- Early identification of these problems necessitates robust and comprehensive follow-up strategies.
- Current follow-up methods may benefit from enhanced, accessible tools.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and evaluate the feasibility of ePIPARI (electronic Pre- and Postnatal Infant Assessment and Referral Instrument), a novel web-based follow-up tool for preterm infants.
- To determine if ePIPARI can effectively identify preterm infants and their families requiring clinical interventions.
- To explore the potential of ePIPARI in tailoring follow-up care frequency and content.
Main Methods:
- ePIPARI involves eight assessment points from term age up to 24 months corrected age.
- The tool integrates standardized questionnaires, clinical visit questions, and provides educational resources for parents.
- A comparative study is underway, contrasting web-based ePIPARI follow-up with traditional clinical follow-up for preterm infants.
Main Results:
- The ePIPARI tool was developed as a sensitive and specific instrument for early detection of needs in preterm infants and their families.
- The study aims to validate its effectiveness in identifying infants and parents requiring additional support.
- Results are anticipated to inform individualized adjustments in clinical visit schedules and interventions.
Conclusions:
- The ePIPARI tool shows promise as an innovative solution for the ongoing monitoring of preterm infants.
- Its web-based nature enhances accessibility and may streamline the identification of at-risk populations.
- Further investigation will confirm ePIPARI's utility in clinical practice for optimizing preterm infant care.
Background:
Preterm infants have a risk of health and developmental problems emerging after discharge. This indicates the need for a comprehensive follow-up to enable early identification of these problems. In this paper, we introduce a follow-up tool "ePIPARI - web-based follow-up for preterm infants". Our future aim is to investigate whether ePIPARI is a feasible tool in the follow-up of preterm infants and whether it can identify children and parents in need of clinical interventions.
Methods:
ePIPARI includes eight assessment points (at term age and at 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months of corrected age) when the child´s health and growth, eating and feeding, neurodevelopment, and parental well-being are evaluated. ePIPARI consists of several widely used, standardized questionnaires, in addition to questions typically presented to parents in clinical follow-up visits. It also provides video guidance and written information about age-appropriate neurodevelopment for the parents. Parents of children born before 34 weeks of gestation during years 2019-2022 are being invited to participate in the ePIPARI study, in which web-based follow-up with ePIPARI is compared to clinical follow-up. In addition, the parents of children born before 32 weeks of gestation, who reached the corrected age of two years during 2019-2021 were invited to participate for the assessment point of 24 months of ePIPARI. The parents are asked to fill in the online questionnaires two weeks prior to each clinical follow-up visit.
Discussion:
The web-based tool, ePIPARI, was developed to acquire a sensitive and specific tool to detect infants and parents in need of further support and clinical interventions. This tool could allow individualized adjustments of the frequency and content of the clinical visits.
Trial Registration:
ClinicalTrials.cov, NCT05238168 . Registered 11 April 2022 - Retrospectively registered.
