Developing "Aryan:" Diabetes Self-care Mobile Application

Mothers' views on mobile health in self-care for pregnancy: A step towards mobile application development

BACKGROUND

Applications for pregnancy self-care (APSC) can improve post-partum by empowering pregnant women's status quo. This study endeavored to identify the operational needs of an application (app) from the perspective of Iranian pregnant women.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In a qualitative manner, semi-structured and face-to-face interviews were conducted using an interview guide. Interviewees were pregnant women who encountered to health facilities of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences for prenatal care and were willing to be interviewed. The interviews were conducted from June 2019 to June 2021. All the recorded interviews were transcribed. The obtained data were analyzed through conventional content analysis using MAXQDA 12 (Developer: VERBI GmbH Release: 2015 Version: 12 OS: Microsoft Windows Type: Qualitative Data Analysis - Offline). Data saturation was obtained after 14 interviews. One of the researchers, as a data encoder, became acquainted with them by immersing himself in the data. After the data was first encoded and summarized, the codes were analyzed. In addition, an attempt was made to reduce the impact of researchers' experiences at different stages of the study process.

RESULTS

Based on the opinions of pregnant women, 7 main themes (nutrition, training, fatal monitoring, relaxation, health, risk factors, physical activity) and 38 sub-themes were identified for APSC development. The findings revealed that pregnant women tend to use APSC, but because they are not comprehensive, women search the Internet to answer some of their information needs.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings can be useful in developing a comprehensive pregnancy self-care mobile application that is localized based on the operational needs of pregnant women to make them capable and self-caring in controlling pre-risk situations.

Developing a mobile health application for wound telemonitoring: a pilot study on abdominal surgeries post-discharge care

BACKGROUND

Many early signs of Surgical Site Infection (SSI) developed during the first thirty days after discharge remain inadequately recognized by patients. Hence, it is important to use interactive technologies for patient support in these times. It helps to diminish unnecessary exposure and in-person outpatient visits. Therefore, this study aims to develop a follow-up system for remote monitoring of SSIs in abdominal surgeries.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

This pilot study was carried out in two phases including development and pilot test of the system. First, the main requirements of the system were extracted through a literature review and exploration of the specific needs of abdominal surgery patients in the post-discharge period. Next extracted data was validated according to the agreement level of 30 clinical experts by the Delphi method. After confirming the conceptual model and the primary prototype, the system was designed. In the pilot test phase, the usability of the system was qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated by the participation of patients and clinicians.

RESULTS

The general architecture of the system consists of a mobile application as a patient portal and a web-based platform for patient remote monitoring and 30-day follow-up by the healthcare provider. Application has a wide range of functionalities including collecting surgery-related documents, and regular assessment of self-reported symptoms via systematic tele-visits based on predetermined indexes and wound images. The risk-based models embedded in the database included a minimum set with 13 rules derived from the incidence, frequency, and severity of SSI-related symptoms. Accordingly, alerts were generated and displayed via notifications and flagged items on clinicians' dashboards. In the pilot test phase, out of five scheduled tele-visits, 11 (of 13) patients (85%), completed at least two visits. The nurse-centered support was very helpful in the recovery stage. Finally, the result of a pilot usability evaluation showed users' satisfaction and willingness to use the system.

CONCLUSION

Implementing a telemonitoring system is potentially feasible and acceptable. Applying this system as part of routine postoperative care management can provide positive effects and outcomes, especially in the era of coronavirus disease when more willingness to telecare service is considered.

Promoting self-management behaviors in adolescents with type 1 diabetes, using digital storytelling: a pilot randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to assess the effects of digital storytelling on the self-management behavior of adolescents with type 1 diabetes (TID).

METHODS

In this pilot randomized controlled clinical trial, 60 adolescents with TID were randomly allocated into two parallel groups: intervention (training with digital storytelling method, n = 33) or control (training with a conventional method, n = 33). The primary outcome was assessing the Self-Management behavior of adolescents with TID (SMOD-A) at baseline and three months after the intervention.

RESULTS

The results revealed that digital storytelling could significantly improve self-management behaviors amongst adolescents with TID (P = 0.005). In contrast, in the control group, no significant changes were observed (P > 0.05). Furthermore, the mean score of Collaboration with Parents subscale was significantly higher in the digital storytelling group than in the control group after the intervention (p = 0.022). The results also showed that the level of Collaboration With Parents' subscale scores had a meaningful reverse relationship with the adolescent age after digital storytelling (p = 0.048). Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that there were significant main effects of time and group on collaboration with parents(p = 0.002) and goal subscales (p = 0.035). With respect to HbA1c levels, significant changes were not observed in any of the groups (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Digital storytelling is practicable and a potentially beneficial training modality for adolescents with TID.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

This trial was respectively registered.

CLINICALTRIALS

gov Identifier: IRCT20191220045828N1 . Date of registration: Oct 29. 2020.

Comparison of the Effect of Cardiac Rehabilitation on Functional Capacity of Diabetic and Nondiabetic Patients after CABG

Background:

After a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), diabetic patients deal with various hemodynamic disorders. This study aimed to compare the effect of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) on the functional capacity of diabetic and nondiabetic patients following CABG.

Methods:

This descriptive-analytical study was performed on 40 diabetic and nondiabetic patients attending a similar CR program following CABG. The subjects were selected by convenience sampling and were divided into two diabetes and nondiabetes groups. All patients attended 24 exercise sessions held 3 days a week. The functional capacity of patients was measured and recorded with the metabolic equivalent of Task criterion before and after the CR program. In addition, data analysis was performed in SPSS version 19.

Results:

In this study, the mean age of the diabetic and nondiabetic patients was 54.45 ± 5.82 and 56.85 ± 5.36 years, respectively. There was no significant difference between the research groups regarding the systolic and diastolic blood pressure (P > 0.05). The mean functional capacity in the diabetes and nondiabetes groups was 4.5 ± 0.79 and 5.2 ± 1.7 before the rehabilitation, respectively. However, the results of Mann–Whitney U-test were indicative of a lack of a significant difference in this respect (P > 0.05). After the CR program, the mean functional capacity in the diabetes and nondiabetes groups was 5.7 ± 1.31 and 6.3 ± 1.7, respectively, demonstrating an insignificant difference in this regard (P > 0.05).

Conclusions:

According to the results of the study, there was no significant difference between the diabetic and nondiabetic patients, who underwent CABG, after a CR program. However, replication of the study is warranted.