Wearable Technology in Pediatric Cardiac Care: A Scoping Review of Parent Acceptance and Patient Comfort

While wearable technology has advanced pediatric medical monitoring, home-based success in cardiology depends heavily on human-centered design. This scoping review synthesizes evidence on the human factors—specifically parental acceptance, child comfort, and usability—that determine the real-world adoption of pediatric cardiac wearables. By systematically searching PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov, we mapped the evidence surrounding diverse technologies, including vital sign and ECG monitors. Our findings reveal a persistent “performance-usability gap”: while devices show high clinical efficacy in controlled settings, their long-term utility is frequently compromised by poor wearability, skin irritation, and a lack of alignment with family routines. The review identifies that current research structures and regulatory pathways reward quantifiable biomedical outcomes, such as sensor accuracy, while routinely sidelining difficult-to-measure factors like parental buy-in and child autonomy. Consequently, we highlight critical gaps in the design process that prioritize clinical specs over the lived experience of the patient. We conclude that a paradigm shift toward human-centered engineering is required to move beyond controlled study success. These results provide a necessary roadmap for developers and regulators to prioritize the “invisible” outcomes of comfort and compliance, which are essential for the effective, sustained home-based monitoring of pediatric patients.