Digital health strategies for sudden infant death syndrome prevention: A scoping review

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has been widely studied, leading to the development of various preventive interventions. However, the application of digital health strategies for SIDS prevention remains largely unexplored. This study was conducted to identify and characterize the digital health strategies that have been utilized to address SIDS.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews and the Arksey and O'Malley methodological framework were used to guide this review. PubMed, CINAHL, and Ovid MEDLINE were searched for relevant peer-reviewed manuscripts published from database inception to April 2024. Peer-reviewed studies in English that utilized digital health strategies were included. Articles that did not explicitly indicate the use of digital health interventions for SIDS prevention were excluded.

Eighteen peer-reviewed manuscripts were included in this review. The type of digital health technology and/or strategies used included video, livestream, digital document, online/web-based program, telephone, blog posts, Instagram post, home monitor, email, and text message. SIDS prevention efforts employed included education, sleep guidelines, sleep instructions, sleep recommendations, modeling, skills training, and safe sleep policy.

Overall, the application of digital health strategies for SIDS prevention remains limited. More research is needed to examine how digital health technologies can be better employed to address SIDS.