Development of an Evidence-Based Mobile Health Application for, and with, Parents to Improve Children?s Oral Health

Sobre o projeto de pesquisa

Dental caries is still prevalent in children across the UK and the globe. It has a negative impact on parents and their children?s quality of life, but it is a preventable disease with high-quality evidence to support parental home care preventive actions, such as diet modification and toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste. Digital technology is now ubiquitous and almost universally accepted as a means of acquiring information. Through smartphone mobile health apps (MHA) adoption of healthy behaviours by mothers of young children can be facilitated, at a time when they are highly receptive to doing the best for their child. Aim The aim of this project is to carry out user-involvement studies to develop an MHA for parents/ carers of young children that contains evidence-based information and promotes positive oral health behaviours. Methods A prototype MHA will be developed, comprising several key oral health promotion messages (toothbrushing). Parent/ carers of children aged 6 years or under (end-users) will be recruited for one-to-one interviews, shown the prototype, and using think-aloud methodology will talk through their opinion of the MHA and its content. Audio recordings of these interviews will be transcribed and analysed using Theoretical Framework of Acceptability. Findings will inform further development of the MHA which will be brought back to parent/ carers to elicit further opinions. Results The results of this study will provide the basis for further development of the MHA for a UK population but also using the framework content to stimulate adaption of the MHA for different populations with appropriate cultural and evidence changes.