A Culturally Sensitive Mobile App (DiaFriend) to Improve Self-Care in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: Development...

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Mobile Health (mHealth)
• Diabetes Self-Management

Background:

• Culturally sensitive mobile apps show higher user acceptance and effectiveness in self-care.
• A gap exists in developing such apps for specific populations, like Portuguese Americans.
• This group has unique dietary practices, including high carbohydrate intake, impacting diabetes management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a prototype diabetes management app for Portuguese Americans with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• To incorporate user-centered design principles and cultural sensitivity using the design thinking methodology.
• To report phase-2 results focusing on app design and development.

Main Methods:

• Adherence to the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University's design thinking methodology.
• Focus on ideation and prototyping (March 2022 - April 2024).
• Multidisciplinary team including nurse educators, app development specialist, and graduate research assistants.

Main Results:

• Developed the DiaFriend app prototype (version 1) with five features: blood glucose monitoring, weight tracking, carbohydrate tracking, exercise log, and medication reminder.
• The carbohydrate tracking feature is culturally tailored to Portuguese food practices.
• Presented front-end interface flowchart and discussed backend development challenges (data storage/retrieval).

Conclusions:

• The DiaFriend app (version 1) emphasizes cultural sensitivity, differentiating it from conventional diabetes self-care apps.
• Highlights the importance of cultural considerations in health informatics for mobile health app development.
• Establishes a foundation for future research on culturally sensitive mHealth apps to potentially improve diabetes management and health outcomes.