Background and Objective:
In response to the increased levels of emotional and physical violence against children due to the covid-19 pandemic and existing barriers to taking parenting programs to scale in lmics, parenting for lifelong health (plh) adapted its parenting programmes into a self-guided chatbot, parenttext. Initial acceptability and engagement with parenttext was tested in multiple pilot studies with results indicating that engagement was a significant barrier to the impact and effectiveness of the digital intervention. Using pilot data, this presentation describes the process of re-designing the intervention to increase engagement and retention.

Methods:
Mixed methods pilot studies were conducted in jamaica, malaysia, and the philippines. Quantitative data from jamaica (n = 1,114), malaysia (n = 82), and the philippines (n = 97) was analysed descriptively, examining average length of participation, number of modules completed, and interaction rates with different message types. Qualitative interviews with parenttext participants from philippines and malaysia (n = 9), and implementers in jamaica and malaysia were conducted and thematic analysis was performed. After data collection, a working group conducted workshops to re-design the intervention using the 6squid/mrc framework.

Results:
Quantitative analysis showed an average length in the programme of 5 days before disengaging regardless of the percentage of the intervention completed. The working group identified four main areas for re-design: 1) adding personalisation features, 2) introducing mechanisms to trigger re-engagement within the intervention, 3) removing structural features contributing to disengagement, and 4) ease of use given a lack of in-person technical support. A new structure for parenttext was created along with a set of recommendations to address limitations of the current programme.

Conclusion:
Our findings demonstrate a pragmatic approach for improving digital violence-reduction interventions in lmics and also represent the first use of the 6squid framework for designing a digital programme for family wellbeing.