ASKSNIFF

Acutely Sick Kid Safety Netting Interventions for Families (ASK SNIFF): A collaborative co-design research programme
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ASK SNIFF is a programme of research, run by the Safety Netting Collaboration, whose aim is to develop video augmented information resources to help families with young children understand signs and symptoms of acute illness so that they can spot when their child is sick.
These resources are also intended to support communication between families and health professionals.
ASK SNIFF is a collaboration between parents & carers, higher education institutions, NHS Trusts and the charity or third sector in the UK. Our team has a wealth of parental, academic and clinical expertise relating to assessment and management of the acutely sick child.
Ask SNIFF logo. Drawn picture of a child, text reads: Acutely sick kid safety netting interventions for families 
Projects include:
  • Acutely Sick Kid Safety-net Review and Analysis (ASK SaRA): The aim of this project was to identify the effectiveness of information resources to help parents decide when to seek medical care for an acutely sick child under 5 years of age, including the identification of factors influencing effectiveness, by systematically reviewing the literature (Neill, Roland et al. 2015). Professor Sarah Neill, Dr Jane Peters and Anna Chick are currently being updating this review to include digital interventions.
  • Acutely Sick Kid Parent Information Project (ASK PIP): This project aimed to identify parent’s and health care professional’s use of information resources during decision making in acute childhood illness at home (Jones, Neill et al. 2013, Jones, Neill et al. 2014, Neill, Jones et al. 2014, Neill, Jones et al. 2016).
  • Acutely Sick Kid Safety-netting Intervention Development (ASK SID): The purpose of this project was to identify the content, presentation and delivery methods for an information resource to help parents decide when to seek help for a sick child.
  • Acutely Sick Kid Parent Education and Training resource (ASK PETra): The purpose of this project was to develop the specific content to be included within the safety netting intervention tool for the parents and carers of an acutely ill child.
  • Acutely Sick Kid Video Capture (ASK ViC): This ongoing project is capturing video of sick children presenting to accident and emergency departments. These videos are then edited into short clips for embedding into the safety netting tool.
  • Acutely Sick Kid iPoorly app development: This is an ongoing project to develop a prototype app and gather proof of concept data prior to seeking funding to sustain and spread adoption across the NHS.
  • Acutely Sick Kid Digital Interventions for Parents from under-represented Communities (ASK DIPaC): This ongoing project aims to understand the digital health experiences of parents from under-represented communities when their children, under five years of age, are acutely ill. We aim to generate a toolkit of resources for digital health developers to facilitate equitable access to digital interventions.

Researchers

Safety Netting Collaboration
  • Professor Sarah Neill , Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Plymouth, UK.
  • Professor Monica Lakhanpaul, Professor of Integrated Community Child Health, Population, Policy & Practice Dept, University College London, Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, UK.
  • Professor Damian Roland, Consultant and Professor in Paediatric Emergency Medicine, Leicester Royal Infirmary and University of Leicester, UK.
  • Professor Mitch Blair, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Public Health, Imperial College, London, UK.
  • Dr Alison Tavaré, Independent General Practitioner, Bristol, UK.
  • Dr Natasha Bayes, Researcher, University of Northampton, UK.
  • Dr Jane Peters , Lecturer in Public Health Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Plymouth, UK
  • Anna Chick, Lecturer in Child Health Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery
  • Charity partners: UK Sepsis Trust, Meningitis Now, Meningitis Research Foundation, WellChild charity.
Twitter: @ASKSNIFF

Funded by: University of Leicester, University of Oxford, WellChild charity.
References
Neill, S., N. Bayes, M. Thompson, C. Croxson, D. Roland and M. Lakhanpaul (2024). "Helping parents know when to seek help for an acutely ill child: Evidence based co-development of a mobile phone app using complex intervention methodology." International Journal of Medical Informatics 187: 105459.
Rathbone, A. L., S. Neill, S. Prime, N. Thomas and K. Everett (2024). "Supporting parents with acutely ill children: Environment scan and user evaluation of mobile applications (the SuPa kids project)." International Journal of Medical Informatics: 105504.
Milne-Ives, M., S. Neill, N. Bayes, M. Blair, J. Blewitt, L. Bray, E. Carrol, B. Carter, R. Dawson, P. Dimitri, M. Lakhanpaul, D. Roland, A. Tavare, E. Meinert and ASK SNIFF Consortium (2021). "Impact of Digital Educational Interventions to Support Parents Caring for Acutely Ill Children at Home and Factors That Affect Their Use: Protocol for a Systematic Review." JMIR Res Protoc 10(6): e27504.
Neill, S., D. Roland, M. Thompson, A. Tavaré and M. Lakhanpaul (2018). "Why are acute admissions to hospital of children under 5 years of age increasing in the UK?" Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Neill, S., C. Jones, M. Lakhanpaul, D. Roland and M. Thompson (2016). "Parents’ help-seeking behaviours during acute childhood illness at home: A contribution to explanatory theory." Journal of Child Health Care 20: 77-86.
Neill, S., D. Roland, C. Jones, M. Thompson and M. Lakhanpaul (2015). "Information resources to aid parental decision-making on when to seek medical care for their acutely sick child: a narrative systematic review." BMJ Open 5(12): DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008280.
Neill, S., C. Jones, M. Lakhanpaul, D. Roland, M. Thompson and the ASK SNIFF research team (2014). "Parent's information seeking in acute childhood illness: what helps and what hinders decision making?" Health Expectations: Online first October 20, 2014.
Jones, C., S. Neill, M. Lakhanpaul, D. Roland, H. Singlehurst-Mooney and M. Thompson (2014). "Information needs of parents for acute childhood illness: determining 'what, how, where and when' of safety netting using a qualitative exploration with parents and clinicians." BMJ Open 4(1).
Roland, D., C. Jones, S. Neill, M. Thompson and M. Lakhanpaul (2014). "Safety netting in healthcare settings: what it means, and for whom?" Archives of disease in childhood - Education & practice edition 99(2): 48-53.
Jones, C., S. Neill, M. Lakhanpaul, D. Roland, H. Singlehurst-Mooney and M. Thompson (2013). "The safety netting behaviour of first contact clinicians: a qualitative study." BMC Family Practice 14(1): 140.