1 The following is the final submitted version of an article Development of a set of mobile phone text messages designed for new fathers by Richard Fletcher1, Chris May1, Jaime Wroe1, Pauline Hall2, Dawson Cooke3, Catherine Rawlinson4, Julie Redfern5 & Brian Kelly1. just published online in the Journal Of Reproductive And Infant Psychology 1.Faculty of Health and Medicine, The University of Newcastle, NSW. 2. Women's and Children's Hospital SA. 3.Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine, Curtin University, WA. 4.Child and Youth Mental Health Service, QLD. 5.The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, NSW The full reference is: Richard Fletcher, Chris May, Jaime Wroe, Pauline Hall, Dawson Cooke, Catherine Rawlinson, Julie Redfern, and Brian Kell. Development of a set of mobile phone text messages designed for new fathers. Journal Of Reproductive And Infant Psychology Vol. 0 , Iss. 0,0. It is available at It is available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02646838.2016.1214250. Title: Development of a set of mobile phone text messages designed for new fathers Abstract Objective: The project aimed to test of the quality and acceptability of researcher-developed Short Message Service (SMS) messages designed to support fathers of infants aged 12 months or less. Background: The findings of previous studies suggest antenatal and post natal depression among fathers’ impacts negatively on the health of family members. Method: Draft messages were first modified based on expert review. In a second phase parents (mothers n = 56; fathers n = 46; unknown n = 4) were recruited through two early childhood parenting services to rate the clarity, usefulness and relevance of the 70 SMS messages using a paper-based survey. In a third phase 15 fathers were recruited to receive texts at different times over three weeks. Results: Findings suggest that SMS items were easily understood by the majority of parents, with only 3% of responses indicating an item was ‘not easily understood’. Feedback from parents indicated that negatively rated SMS messages were considered as either poorly phrased, lacking enough information or as not offering sufficient support. The majority (88%) of the SMS items were also rated as ‘useful’ by the parents. Conclusion: Father’s responses indicated that receiving the texts at different