Aim: To explore digital health interventions on patient safety for children and their parents.
Design: A scoping review.
Methods: The PCC 'Participants, Concepts, and Contexts' guided the selection of studies that focused on children under 19 years of age or their parents, patient safety interventions for children, and digital health technology for patient safety interventions. This study was conducted using the Arksey and O'Malley framework's five steps. We reported the review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews Checklist.
Data sources: PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane were searched for articles published up to November 2022.
Results: A total of 13 articles were included and categorized according to the following criteria to describe the results: intervention characteristics, type of digital technology, and outcome characteristics. Regarding intervention characteristics, we identified two categories, prevention and risk management. Additionally, we identified four types of digital technology, mobile applications, web-based technologies, computer kiosks and electronic health records. Finally, in studies focussing on child safety, parental safety behaviours were used to assess injury risk or detect changes related to prevention.
Conclusion: Patient safety interventions provided through appropriate digital technologies should be developed to enhance continuum of care for children from hospitalization to home after discharge.
Implications for the profession and/or patient care: Digital health interventions can bolster the role of healthcare providers in patient safety in and out of hospitals, thus improving children's safety and quality of care.
Impact: What problem did the study address? Although the various advantages of digital health technology have been demonstrated, the potential role of digital technology in patient safety interventions for children has not been explored. What were the main finding? Preventive patient safety interventions and risk management for children have been developed. Where and on whom will the research have an impact? Digital health interventions on patient safety can improve children's safety and quality of care by promoting non-face-to-face engagement of children and parents after discharge and expanding healthcare providers' roles.
Trial and protocol registration: Registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/dkvst).
Patient or public contribution: No patient or public contribution.
Keywords: digital technology; paediatric nursing; paediatrics; patient safety.
© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.