A Mobile Gaming App to Train Teenage Mothers on Appropriate Child Feeding Practices: Development and Validation Study

Area of Science:

• Mobile Health (mHealth) interventions
• Global child nutrition
• Digital health education

Background:

• Maternal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices are critical for child survival, with undernutrition causing nearly 50% of deaths in Nigerian children under five.
• Teenage motherhood is a significant risk factor for inadequate child feeding and undernutrition.
• Mobile phone ubiquity presents an opportunity for digital health interventions, even in low-income settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a mobile gaming application, BabyThrive, for training teenage mothers in Nigeria on appropriate IYCF practices.
• To leverage mobile gaming technology to address gaps in IYCF knowledge and practices among young mothers.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and focus groups with teenage mothers identified IYCF gaps in northern Nigeria.
• App content was designed, validated by nutrition experts, and prototyped.
• Usability and quality assessments were conducted with nutrition/gaming experts and 90 teenage mothers.
• Efficacy was evaluated by comparing IYCF knowledge scores before and after using the BabyThrive app versus traditional verbal training.

Main Results:

• The BabyThrive app achieved a high mean quality rating (4.3/5.0) with over 80% usability and user satisfaction.
• Participants using the BabyThrive app showed significantly higher knowledge scores in exclusive breastfeeding and overall IYCF compared to the verbal training group.
• A significant positive correlation (Spearman's rho = 0.50, P<.001) was found between knowledge scores from both training methods, indicating construct validity.

Conclusions:

• A novel, offline mobile gaming app, BabyThrive, was successfully developed and validated for disseminating IYCF knowledge.
• The app offers an accessible, effective, and acceptable method for improving IYCF practices among rural teenage mothers in Nigeria.
• BabyThrive has the potential to significantly impact child undernutrition rates by empowering young mothers with essential feeding knowledge.