Desenvolvimento e validação de aplicativo móvel para pacientes em tratamento da Hanseníase

Abstract

Introduction: The use of applications on mobile devices can promote numerous benefits for users in treatment of chronic diseases in primary care, among them leprosy. Objective: to develop and validate a mobile application for patients undergoing leprosy treatment. Method: a methodological study, using an adaptation of the User Centered Design (UCD) model organized in phases: focus on users and their tasks and usability measurement. In the first phase, we sought to identify the interest of people affected by leprosy in a mobile application and the definition of the content that was based on the result of this research, in the Practical Guide on Leprosy and in the Health Handbook of the person affected by Leprosy. Initially we sought to identify the interest of people affected by leprosy in a mobile application and the definition of the content that was based on the results of this research, on the Leprosy Field Guide and on the Health Booklet for People Affected by Leprosy. In the second phase, the application was developed by adapting the scrum method, which optimizes time and facilitates communication between the team and validation, which involved 15 health specialists, 3 computing and design specialists and 15 people affected by leprosy. Health professionals evaluated the content and appearance of the application, whose result was the Content Validity Index (CVI), technology professionals answered the questionnaire for design and usability through Nielsen's Heuristics and people affected by leprosy answered the System Usability Scale (SUS), evaluating the usability of the application. Results: the “HansenAgenda” application was developed using the prototyping method, for smartphones with the Android system, in the Android Studio environment, with the Java programming language and user interface created from the XML language, both environment standards. It was divided into modules called screens that work independently, with their own interface, but able to communicate with each other. Content and appearance validation showed high agreement with an overall CVI of 0.93. The usability by people affected by leprosy was assessed as adequate for use with an average score of 92.8 on the SUS scale with the “Best Imaginable” classification and the responses to this questionnaire showed good reliability, according to the validation analysis by Cronbach's alpha coefficient (value: 0.986). Conclusion: the study enabled the development of the “HansenAgenda application, for use by people affected by leprosy and validated by health, computing and design specialists and positively evaluated by the target audience.