5 Cs of Media Use Quick Guide: A Practical Reference Tool for Busy Clinicians

Clinicians cover many topics during a well-child visit, including media use. The 5 Cs of Media Use Quick Guide card is a practical reference tool that helps clinicians easily bring media use conversations into routine care using the 5 Cs of Media Use framework. The Quick Guide card, worn on a lanyard, provides an empirically based question for each of the 5 Cs that clinicians can use to start a practical conversation about media use during a visit. 

The questions are as follows: 

• Child: Tell me about how you use media. What do you like to do or watch? 
• Content: What connections do you notice between the media content you view and how you feel? 
• Calm: It’s normal for people to use both media and non-media ways to deal with feeling stressed or nervous. How do you manage stress? 
• Crowd Out: How does media get in the way of things you want or need to do, such as sleep, time with friends, or physical activity? 
• Communication: What rules and guidelines for media do you and your family use? 

The Quick Guide is designed to be easily kept close at hand; printed and worn on a lanyard or somewhere accessible so that the 5 Cs and their corresponding questions are always within reach. 

Tips for Using the Quick Guide in Clinic

When using the 5 Cs questions, keep these tips in mind: 

• You do not need to ask all five questions at every clinic visit.   
• The questions do not need to be asked in a certain order.  
• Tailor the questions to the individual patient and their situation and concerns. 
• The questions use the term “media,” but you can use terms that fit the visit, such as technology, screens, devices, video games, social media, or AI. 

The 5 Cs of Media Use Quick Guide was developed by the Social Media and Health Research and Training Lab (SMAHRT) research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Dr. Megan Moreno. The aim was to help clinicians use the 5 Cs framework in a practical way during routine clinical care. The questions were identified and tested through a research process focused on what clinicians could realistically ask in a busy visit while still opening a meaningful conversation with children, teens, and families. 

The goal of this project was to work with pediatricians and teens to identify questions to ask in clinic for each of the 5 Cs.  

This project had several phases:

Phase 1:  

Brainstorming: Pediatricians and adolescents generated example questions for each of the 5 Cs that pediatricians could ask in clinic, using an online survey. The research team reviewed the questions and removed duplicates. They then created a list of potential questions for each of the 5 Cs.  

Phase 2:  

Rank your favorites: Pediatricians and adolescents ranked their top 5 questions for each of the 5 Cs. The research team reviewed the data and selected the top 2-4 questions for each of the 5 Cs based on top ranked questions for both pediatricians and for adolescents. 

Phase 3:  

Testing: During interviews with pediatricians, researchers reviewed the findings from the project so far, including results from brainstorming and ranking. Pediatricians then selected questions that they would test in clinic with actual patients. Each pediatrician selected between 1 and 3 questions for each of the 5 Cs to test in clinic over the upcoming 1-2 months. The pediatrician was sent a list of the questions they selected to use as a reminder. 

Feedback: The pediatricians then each did a follow-up interview with a researcher to provide feedback on the question testing. They let the research team know which questions they tested, which they adapted, which they liked and which they didn’t.  

Phase 4:  

Analysis: In this phase, the research team reviewed the results across all 3 phases, with particular attention to Phase 3 feedback from real-life testing. The most-used and most-useful question for each of the 5Cs was then selected by the SMAHRT Lab research team to be used for the Quick Guide.