Construction of a mobile application prototype to assist in the self-care of children and adolescents with chronic kidney disease
Health Education; self-care; Mobile Applications; Biomedical Technology; Chronic Kidney Disease in childhood.
Advances in the development of technology, its use and its applicability in various scenarios of the health system, enable greater participation of the user and his support network in the treatment, preventing possible complications of the disease. The use of technology to monitor, promote care and encourage greater adherence to treatment is already a reality, fa- cilitating professional/patient integration. Considering that an ineffective communication between the health team and the user (the patient and his family) can impact the treatment, the aim was to develop a prototype of a mobile application as a tool to facilitate communication and help in the self-care of children and adolescents undergoing treatment. of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). This is a study in the field of technological inno- vation that had as a reference the Design Science Research (DSR) meth- odology, operationalized through three cycles: I- Cycle of Relevance; II- Rigor Cycle, III- Design Cycle. From then on, the initial tests of the pro- totype were carried out, as well as its evaluation. In order to validate the content and appearance, the model was submitted to judges experienced in assisting children and adolescents with CKD. The content and appear- ance of the technology were developed based on the scoping review and validated using the Delphi technique. The proposed technology, called “Caring for the Kidneys”, consists of 21 screens and, considering the ex- perts' assessment, its Content Validity Index (CVI) was equal to or greater than the cutoff point (70.0), ranging up to the maximum ratings. The ap- pearance of the technology also obtained the maximum agreement index. It is believed, therefore, that the technological resource built and validated in this study can be configured as a valuable instrument in health promo- tion, providing the transfer of information, improvement in communica- tion, stimulation of autonomy and social inclusion of young people with CKD.