There\u27s an App for That: Promoting Health App Use in Rural Ireland

Problem Statement: Smartphones and mobile applications (commonly referred to as apps) were first introduced in the late 20th century and early 21st century. Due to the public’s time constraints, lack of transportation, lack of medical insurance, and a growing desire for healthier lifestyles, the total global mHealth market forecast to reach 100 billion dollars in 2021 – a fivefold increase from 21 billion in 2016. mHealth apps have been successfully used for health promotion activities but barriers such as lack of knowledge and comfort in using health apps exist. Purpose: Evaluate readiness of a rural community and the effectiveness of health-related app educational sessions on increasing knowledge, comfort in using mHealth apps, and intent to use mHealth apps. Methodology: A one-group pre-test/post-test design was used to evaluate mHealth app educational sessions offered at a community center in rural Ireland. A convenience sample of 56 individuals (middle/high school students) and adults who routinely access services at the community center participated in a mHealth app educational session. Procedure: 56 participants were enrolled in the study, 36 females and 20 males. Participants ranged in age from 16-67 with a mode of 17. Nearly all of participants (96.4%) reported having access to a smart phone with time spent per day using the smartphone averaging 2 hours and 43 minutes. The majority (92.9%) of the participants used apps on their phones but only 41.1% used health-related apps. Ninety-eight percent of the participants have internet access at home but only 23.2% conducted health related research online and even fewer have electronic access to health records (7.1%) or communicate with a health care provider electronically (3.6%). Twenty one percent of participants reported using “wearables” to monitor their personal health. There were no changes in procedures or to the anticipated risks or benefits. Results: After the educational session, participants reported they were more knowledgeable about mHealth apps, more comfortable using mHealth apps and were more likely to use mHealth apps. The self-reported post education knowledge mean was 68.09% on a scale of 0-100. The self-reported knowledge mean increased by 30, statistically significant at p Conclusion: Providing educational sessions with hands-on demonstrations and practice is an effective strategy to increase knowledge, comfort and intent on utilization of mHealth apps for health promotion activities. Removing some of the common barriers to the utilization of mHealth apps increased the likelihood of their use and offers an accessible tool for health promotion activities to underserved populations in rural communities