Expecting parents’ use of digital sources in preparation for parenthood in a digitalised society – a systematic reviewShow others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: Digital Health, E-ISSN 2055-2076, Vol. 8, article id 20552076221090335Article, review/survey (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Background
In today's society, people are experiencing the rapid development of digitalisation. Expecting parents may have difficulties evaluating the information online; they are not always sure which sources of information are trustworthy, and this exacerbates their feelings of anxiety. More research is needed to broaden the knowledge about how their use of digital sources may influence their health.
Question
The focus of this study was to explore expecting parents’ use of digital sources and how this influences their health during pregnancy.
Methods
A systematic review covered the thematic analysis of 39 articles.
Findings
The analysis resulted in the following theme: The digitalised society involves both opportunities and challenges, and expecting parents express a need for a variety of digital sources to improve their health, and sub-themes: Digital sources could promote parents’ health and well-being in a digitalised society; Consuming digital health information facilitates understanding, different feelings and social connections; and A variety of digital sources may facilitate parental identification and adaption to parenthood.
Conclusion
Different digital sources in our digitalised society mean access to information and opportunities to extend social connections for expecting parents. This can promote their ability to understand and adapt to parenthood, as well as to improve their health and well-being and make the parental transition. However, professional support during face-to-face consultations cannot always be exchanged to digital sources. It is important to base digital sources devoted to expecting parents and digitalisation overall on multi-sectorial collaborations and coordination between different organisations and the digital sources they provide.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2022. Vol. 8, article id 20552076221090335
Keywords [en]
pregnancy, digitalisation, antenatal, childbirth, mother, father
National Category
Nursing Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine
Research subject
Family-Centred Health
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:his:diva-21063DOI: 10.1177/20552076221090335ISI: 000783559300001PubMedID: 35449713Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85128418224OAI: oai:DiVA.org:his-21063DiVA, id: diva2:1652309
Note
CC BY 4.0
First published online April 14, 2022
caroline.backstrom@his.se
Funding: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the School of Health Sciences, University of Skövde, Sweden.
2022-04-192022-04-192024-01-17Bibliographically approved