Mobile Applications and Healthy Habits of Adolescents, a Strange Couple: Pilot Study of the Efficacy of the Healthy Jeart App

The present study aims to analyse the healthy habits of a group of adolescents before and after an educational intervention using the Healthy Jeart mobile app. This is the first pilot study on Healthy Jeart, based on a single intervention with experimental and control groups. The participants were secondary education students in the third and fourth years, from an educational centre in Huelva (Spain). They were distributed between a control group and an experimental group. Information about their habits was obtained through a questionnaire prepared from the HSBC (Health Behaviour in School-aged Children) instrument, which was administered before and after the intervention. Although the results do not indicate a substantial change in the habits of the participants, there were some intragroup differences. In the experimental group, a difference was obtained in the feeling of being fit and healthy. The global perspective on health of the app would explain this changeThis study was framed within the research project entitled “Design of a mobile application to educate young people in healthy habits”, code PI 047/16, funded by the Board of Health, according to the Resolution of 20 December 2016 of the General Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation in Health, which granted funds to finance biomedical research, development and innovation in health sciences in Andalusia for the year 2016, for “Lines of Innovation, Development and Innovation Projects in Biomedicine and Health Sciences”. This was the only project funded in Huelva in this call of the Progress and Health Foundation in 2016. In 2020 and 2021, funding was continued through chairs. Recently, the continuation of the project has been funded within the framework of the Operational Program ERDF Andalusia 2014–2020, named “App para educar a los jóvenes en hábitos saludables basada en la evaluación mediante Ciencia de los Datos” (Ref. UHU-202062) (title translated into English: “App to educate young people in healthy habits based on evaluation through data science”). The authors thank all the participating families and the CEIP (Early Childhood and Primary Education School) “Salesianos” Cristo Sacerdote, for their selfless participation in the data gathering process, as well as the entities that collaborated in this project, funded by the Board of Health, since their economic and generalised support keeps this project alive: Atlantic Copper Foundation, Cei.mar (Campus de Excelencia Internacional del mar), EXMO, Colegio Oficial De Enfermería de Huelva, Cátedra Aiqbe, Cátedra de Innovación Social de Aguas de Huelva, Cátedra de la Provincia de la Diputación de Huelva and Cátedra CEPSA. The authors also thank the following prestigious entities for contributing to this project: Association for Community Nursing (AEC), Spanish Association for Pediatric Nursing (AEEP), Spanish Association of Nursing for Mental Health (AEESME), Andalusian Association for Community Nursing (ASANEC), Andalusian Federation of Families and Persons with Mental Health Problems (FEAFES), Ibero-American Network of Health Promoting Universities (RIUPS), Andalusian Society of Family and Community Medicine (SAMFyC), European Network of Health Promoting Schools (REUPS), Spanish Society of Pedagogy (SEP) and General Board of Nursing. All the people and entities who collaborated in this health education project, based on new technologies, have allowed Healthy Jeart to become a working project that can help in educational centres and homes, which can now be transformed into health education centre