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Background: WhatsApp® is one of the most used apps in Brazil. One of its main features is the potential to overcome geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic disparities. This app is increasingly being used as a tool for mobile health (m-health) interventions; however, with regard to blood donation, scientific studies are still lacking. The recruitment, return, and loyalty of blood donors are public health challenges, especially in developing countries. Objective: To verify the effectiveness of WhatsApp as a tool to increase the return rates of blood donors (first-time and loyal donors). Methods: The study was carried out with 548 individuals who voluntarily went to a private blood bank in the city of Maringá, south of Brazil, to donate blood. The participants were divided randomly into an intervention group (IG) and a control group (CG). Four messages were created following a strategy of persuasive communication and sent using an automatic system (Bulk System) to the list of participants in the IG after they had donated blood. Results: In contrast to our expectations, after the intervention, no significant difference in the return rates was observed between the IG and the CG. Loyal donors, regardless of whether they received the messages or not, returned in higher numbers compared with the first-time and sporadic donors. Conclusion: The intervention using WhatsApp was not effective at increasing the blood donors' return rates, suggesting that the motivations of blood donors are different from those of people who are undergoing self-care interventions. Furthermore, the difference in the blood donors' return rates suggests that specific interventions should be created according to the different stages of the donors' careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Dental caries comprises the most prevalent chronic disease in children worldwide and is considered a public health problem. Introduction:Few educational oral health applications, directed to the preschool public, are available. The present study aimed at developing an educational game in application format for mobile devices and tested its usability. Materials and Methods:Forty-three children were randomly selected to participate in the study. The methodology used in the development of the application was based on an interactive children's book flux design. The application was elaborated for the Android™ and iOS™ platforms. To evaluate usability, a test method composed of observation and interview surveying was used, and the measuring mechanism consisted of the User's Success Rate. The sample (N = 43) was randomly composed of preschool students (3–5 years of age) from a public school in Brazil. Results:In the effectiveness tests, the success rates of the Story and Game Menus were 97.6% and 85.3%, respectively. In the efficiency tests, the respective rates were 80.2% and 82.1%. The satisfaction evaluation rate was 99.7%. Discussion:The game "Put the healthy food into the mouth" showed to be difficult in utilization due to the children's lack of knowledge concerning healthy foods (p < 0.001 and 95% confidence interval). Three year olds demonstrated a greater requirement for assistance during navigation. Conclusions:The application was successful regarding the following three assessed attributes: (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, and (3) satisfaction. However, dietary education was observed to be necessary for the children and their guardians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mobile health (m-health) tools are a promising strategy to facilitate the work of community health workers (CHWs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite their potential value, little is known about CHWs' experiences working with m-health tools in their outreach activities with community members.Methods: To understand the benefits of and barriers to using m-health tools for CHWs, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 57 CHWs employed in six primary care centers in São Paulo, Brazil. All CHWs had experience using a cell phone application called Geohealth for collecting health and demographic data of community members. We assessed their experiences using Geohealth and recommendations for improvements.Results: CHWs described key benefits of using Geohealth as helping them save time with bureaucratic paperwork, organizing the data that they needed to collect, and by replacing sheaves of paper, reducing the weight that they carried in the field. However, there were many technical and social barriers to the successful adoption of the m-health tool. Key among these were poor quality hardware, faulty software programs, and negative community member perceptions of the m-health program. The CHWs provided valuable input as to how Geohealth could be improved to fit their needs.Conclusion: m-health tools have the potential to facilitate the work of CHWs in LMICs. However, such tools must be designed and implemented thoughtfully. Technical barriers related to both hardware and software must be anticipated and addressed to maximize their efficiency and successful adoption. CHW input on the design of the tool should be sought to maximize its utility and minimize barriers to use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Warfarin remains the most affordable oral anticoagulant in many countries. However, it may have serious side effects, and the success of the therapy depends on the patient's understanding of the medication and their adherence to treatment. The use of short messages services (SMS) is a strategy that can be used to educate patients, but there are no studies evaluating this intervention in patients taking warfarin. Therefore, we aimed to develop, implement, and assess the feasibility of an intervention using SMS to primary care patients taking warfarin in a medium-sized Brazilian city., Methods: A bank of 79 SMS was drafted and validated by an expert panel. During 6 months, three times a week, patients received messages about anticoagulation with warfarin. At baseline and after 3 months, we assessed their knowledge and adherence with validated instruments. At the end of the follow-up, participants answered a satisfaction questionnaire. Subsequently, a scale-up phase was conducted, with another round of the intervention including 82 participants (29 from the first phase and 53 newly recruited). Seven months after the end of the scale-up, we asked the patients for their insights about the long-term effects of this program. All patients signed informed consent. The study was approved by the Research and Ethics committee of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais., Results: In the pilot, 33 (89.2%) patients completed the follow-up. Among the participants who answered the satisfaction questionnaire (n = 29), 86.2% considered that the intervention motivated a healthy lifestyle and improved their understanding of warfarin therapy. All patients were willing to continue receiving the messages. Adherence measured by the Measure of Adherence to Treatment (MAT) test was high in the pre-intervention assessment and remained high (96.7% vs. 93.3%; p = 1.0000). The proportion of patients who achieved > 75% correct answers on the Oral Anticoagulation Knowledge (OAK) test increased from 6.5% to 25.6, p = 0.0703. In the scale-up, 23 patients answered the long-term assessment questionnaire. The main long-term knowledge reported was dietary information. Nine patients received the messages but did not remember their content., Conclusion: The intervention was well-accepted and had a positive impact on patient's knowledge about oral anticoagulation therapy. The scale-up assessment reinforced the need to constantly monitor digital interventions., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Background: Hypertension remains widely undetected, undertreated, and poorly controlled. Appropriate dietary changes can prevent and treat hypertension effectively. Primary care physicians (PCPs) have the opportunity to counsel patients about their diets and are able to facilitate long-term adherence to changes. However, they encounter several barriers to delivery of evidence-based counseling in daily medical practice. m-Health can make important contributions. Objective: To describe the development and assessment of a Brazilian mobile app for nutritional management of hypertension supported by evidence-based. Materials and Methods: App development used a user-centered approach that seeks to solve problems in a collective and collaborative way. The app was developed in Apache Cordova ® (Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA) for iOS and Android mobile phone platforms. Beta testing was performed with a sample of Brazilian PCPs ( n  = 62), who were asked to use the app in routine practice and evaluate it. Results: The process involved researchers, government, PCPs, nutritionists, and designers. Dieta Dash ® (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul-UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil) app was divided into following sections: meal evaluation, Healthy meals, Healthy choices, and a database of Healthy recipes. The mean perceived usefulness and ease-of-use scores were 23.3 and 32.3 out of 42, respectively. Conclusions: It is a great source of up-to-date and summary guidelines, usable, acceptable, and positively impact clinical care. PCPs have identified improvements that could make the user experience better. The Dieta Dash app can be incorporated into Brazilian primary care practice.