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A novel wide scale well-baby clinic mobile application: an Egyptian pilot study
Noha M Ibrahim1, Hanan S Ez-Elarab2, Mohamed Momen2
1Department of Community, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, 38 Ramses St., Abbassia Square, Cairo, 11566, Egypt. noha_magdi@med.asu.edu.eg.
Insights
A new mobile app, Sehhat Tefly, was developed to support child healthcare in Egypt, addressing low service utilization. The app helps caregivers monitor child development and wellbeing, offering accessible health information and guidance.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health Informatics
- mHealth Interventions
- Public Health Technology
Background:
- Child healthcare service utilization under age 5 is low in Egypt, with most visits focused on immunizations.
- Mobile health (mHealth) offers a cost-effective solution for disseminating crucial information on nutrition, growth monitoring, and vaccination schedules.
- Existing services lack comprehensive tools for continuous child health monitoring and caregiver support.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify user needs and requirements for a comprehensive well-baby clinic mobile application.
- To develop and validate a mobile application prototype for well-baby clinic services.
- To enhance accessibility and utilization of child healthcare services through mHealth.
Main Methods:
- A four-phase study involving literature review, market research, and online surveys for user requirements.
- Development of the Sehhat Tefly app, integrating evidence-based information and ensuring data safety.
- Validation of the app's quality using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) by expert consultants.
Main Results:
- The Sehhat Tefly app was developed based on mothers' requirements, featuring sections on growth, development, immunizations, nutrition, and safety.
- Expert validation resulted in a mean app quality rating of 3.7 out of 5.
- The app achieved 1445 downloads within four months of its public launch on the Android platform.
Conclusions:
- The Sehhat Tefly app provides a free, accessible tool for caregivers to track child development and wellbeing.
- The application can guide caregivers on when to seek professional medical consultation.
- mHealth solutions like Sehhat Tefly show promise in improving pediatric healthcare access and management.
Background:
Utilization of under 5-year-old child healthcare services in Egypt is considered low, the highest proportion of well-baby visits is mainly for immunization in the first 2 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 the app prototype and validate it.
Methods:
This study was conducted in four phases: User requirements, development, validation and usage. In user requirement phase, the need for the new app was assessed by performing literature review, market app research and an online survey. In 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 validation phase, after a series of testing, the app was validated using Mobile app rating scale (MARS) by public health and pediatrics consultants to assess its quality. Finally, the app was launched and made available to the public on Android platform.
Results:
Sehhat Tefly app was developed based on the demands and requirements of mothers of under 5-year-old children. The app constituted caregiver, child information and seven service elements: physical growth, developmental milestones, immunizations, nutrition, teething, safety & emergency measures and report. The app quality mean was rated 3.7 out of 5 by the panel of experts. The app was downloaded 1445 times in a 4 month period.
Conclusions:
Sehhat Tefly app can meet the need for a free, easy and accessible tool for caregivers to track the progress of children's development and wellbeing. It can also provide advice for referral to physician consultation in case of deviation from normal measures.
