الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Background: Utilization of under 5 years old child healthcare services in Egypt is considered low, the highest proportion of well-baby visits is mainly for immunization in the first two years of age. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions have the potential to be a useful and low-cost way to disseminate information about proper nutrition, can be used to monitor children’s growth using the official charts of World Health Organization, can also help in accessing vaccine-related information and schedules. Objectives: To assess needs and requirements for a new comprehensive well-baby clinic mobile application (app) covering well-baby clinic service components. Thereafter, to develop, validate and evaluate the app prototype. Methods: The study was conducted on four main phases. In the first phase “User requirement assessment”, the need for the new app was assessed by performing market app research and an online survey. In the second phase “Development phase”, we developed the novel well-baby clinic app that constituted all well-baby clinic services for children’s health monitoring relying on evidence-based information and honoring data safety. In the third phase “Validation phase”, the app was validated using Mobile app rating scale (MARS) by public health and pediatrics consultants. In the final phase “Evaluation phase”, the app was evaluated for usage by number of downloads, number of accounts registered on the app and the number of services used. Results: The online survey on 374 mothers showed that most of them (97.3%) reported their need for a new app that regularly follow their children’s health remotely. In the market research, all of the extracted Arabic apps were in the form of written articles that offered no interactive features for parents. Sehhat tefly app was developed constituting caregiver, child information and seven services: physical growth, developmental milestones, immunizations, nutrition, teething, safety & emergency measures and report. The app quality mean was rated 3.7 by the panel of experts. In a 4 month study period, the app had been downloaded 1,445 times, 943 of them registered in the app with an overall response rate of 65.3%. After removal of duplicates and age errors, 811 child registered correctly. Conclusions: Sehhat tefly app can meet the need for a free, easy and accessible tool for caregivers to follow up development and wellbeing of their children. |