Authors
1 Health Information Technology Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
2 Reproductive Sciences and Sexual Health Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract
Self‑care may help prevent pregnancy complications and mortality by informing parents. Mobile
health applications (apps) can help individuals to improve the quality of self‑care. Although it has
been claimed that mobile apps have various benefits, their functionalities in pregnancy self‑care
are still unclear. A clear understanding of current apps can help researchers, practitioners, and app
developers to identify appropriate functionalities for new development and future refinement of current
apps. This review endeavored to identify appropriate functions for pregnancy self‑care mobile apps
and user interface (UI) features. The scope of this review integrates self‑care for pregnancy apps
published in Google Play and Cafe Bazaar (an Iranian Android marketplace), popular Android app
stores, from July to October 2019 by sing the systematic search technique. All 4196 downloaded apps
were installed, and it was found that 76 of them met the inclusion criteria. This way, their features
were extracted and categorized by the conventional content analysis. Three main themes and 69
subthemes in terms of apps functionalities and their UI features were extracted as follows: 1) Training
materials (maternal and paternal) with 27 subthemes; 2) self‑care functionalities (consultations, fetus
tracking, clinical examination, supportive assistance, and reminders) with 26 subthemes; and UI
features with 16 subtheme. The findings underlined the mHealth solutions for pregnancy self‑care
and the need for development of the apps regarding the extracted functionalities and UI features;
however, controlled trials are needed. It is recommended that transparent reporting of mHealth
interventions needs to be prioritized to enable effective interpretation of the extracted data.
Keywords
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