The blended E-ToP program - preliminary research

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The ToP program is an evidence-based intervention from the Amsterdam UMC for very premature babies (<32 weeks gestation; approximately 1750 per year in the Netherlands) and their parents, aimed at improving the parent-child interaction and the development of the child. A ToP child physiotherapist provides guidance in the first year at home. Parents indicate to ToP paediatric physiotherapists that they need more information, which can be applied to their premature child, but find it difficult.

For example, very premature children have an increased risk of motor, cognitive and behavioural problems, which can later lead to poor school performance and social problems. The aim of the ToP program is to enable parents to better recognize the behavioural signals of their child (increase sensitivity) and to respond adequately (increase responsiveness) to their child in order to improve the developmental outcomes for their child. In addition, the strategies of the ToP program focus on reducing parental stress and giving these parents more knowledge about their child’s development. These strategies are individually tailored to the development phase of the child and the needs and possibilities of parents.

In this way, more knowledge of parents about the child’s development is associated with better development outcomes. Moreover, it is an important condition for empowerment. A digital solution could help provide (additional) information from the ToP program and make it more in line with the needs of different groups of parents.

With this preliminary research, we want to identify the needs and possibilities of an online application (eToP) with different groups of parents and develop a first prototype. It contributes to the mission of the ‘People in Movement’ (PiM) program because it focuses on a very vulnerable target group, combines movement and creative technology and involves (minor) students in the research.