Designing a Mobile-Based Self-Care Application for Patients with Cutaneous Leishmaniasis: An Effective Step in Patients’ Self-Care and Participation

Abstract

Introduction: Today, the introduction of smartphones into the healthcare field has led to rapid growth in application development; provided many important tasks such as maintaining health and access to information, communications and counseling, referral and data collection, management and supervision of patients; and facilitated patient self-care and participation.Material and Methods: In order to design a mobile-based self-care application, the designing purpose was first defined and then related literature was reviewed and different kinds of software designed in this field were identified. Using the specified information elements, UML diagrams (Use-Case, Sequence, and Activity) were plotted by Visual Paradigm Enterprise 8 software.In fact, a feasibility assessment was carried out, based on which the application prototype was developed and provided to 10 patients to achieve their opinions. In the next step, the final application components were determined based on user feedback and experts approval. In the final step, Quiz Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire v.7.0 was used to assess users' satisfaction.Results: Based on user questions and answers, and answers available in the database, the application offers appropriate therapies that emphasize the presence of patients in health centers.Conclusion: The presented application helps with providing rapid information and awareness about different aspects of the disease.

Presumptive Diagnosis of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

“…In particular, neglected diseases, such as CL, may benefit from technological advances that widen the reach of health interventions by including patients from remote and poor areas [9]. In addition, these technological advancements may induce an increase in self-monitoring for disease treatment and prevention [6]. Finally, the model is limited to the classification of CL particular visual characteristics.…”

“…Our aim was to eliminate expert's bias by relying solely on image classification of the wound using computer vision algorithms [3,4]. In fact, for CL the only mhealth applications to date were designed using simple prediction rules based on expert's visual inspections [5] or based on self-care visual examination [6,7]. This novel technology has the potential to improve early disease detection and appropriate treatment [8,9] without introducing human perceptual errors.…”

Developing a Content Model of a Mobile-Based Application to Manage Patients with Low-Back and Neck Pain

“…For example, Nadri et al introduced a mobile app for self-care as a complementary approach for cutaneous leishmaniasis. This application provides the best necessary treatment approaches according to user data and based on evidence-based information [ 29 ]. Also, Ehrler et al, to design a mobile app for bedside nursing care, invited 11 participants to help them choose the most important features to be integrated into the tool with brainstorming sessions [ 30 ].…”