Healthcare providers' awareness of a mobile-based app for disease classification in northwest Ethiopia: A multilevel...

Mobile health (mHealth) apps improve healthcare providers' accurate disease classification in resource-limited settings. Ethiopia recently introduced the National Health Data Dictionary (NHDD) mobile app for disease classification; however, healthcare providers' awareness of it remains unknown. This study aimed to assess awareness of mobile-based disease classification apps among healthcare providers working in public health facilities in northwest Ethiopia and to determine the factors associated with this awareness.

A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 423 healthcare providers working at 19 public health facilities in northwest Ethiopia from October 1 to 25, 2023. Data were collected using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire. Awareness was defined as being aware of the existence of a mobile app (NHDD) for disease classification. Multilevel logistic regression analysis was used to account for clustering at the health facility level. Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to identify associated factors.

Only 30.73% (95% CI: 26.30%-35.55%) of healthcare providers were aware of a mobile-based app for disease classification. Healthcare providers having social media accounts (AOR = 13.96; 95% CI: 2.33-83.64), ever visited the medical field by a mobile phone (AOR = 2.39; 95% CI: 1.03-5.51), digital literacy (AOR = 6.13; 95% CI: 1.50-25.01), awareness of the ESV-ICD-11 booklet on paper (AOR = 2.34; 95% CI: 1.06-5.18), and access to ESV-ICD-11 training or mentorship (AOR = 2.93; 95% CI: 1.25-6.87) were factors associated with awareness.

About one-third of healthcare providers are aware of the mobile-based disease classification app. Social media use, digital literacy, prior mobile use for the medical field, familiarity with the paper-based ESV-ICD-11 booklet, and ESV-ICD-11 training or mentorship were associated factors with awareness. Targeted awareness creation interventions could be considered to support the success of mobile-based app implementation in Ethiopia.