mHealth application
communication difficulties, ’ behavior
DISEASE
A mobile app-based parenting program for multicultural families with young children was developed using the five stages of the ADDIE model: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (Characteristics of the mHealth program participants (First, for the analysis stage, we conducted a systematic review of the research literature on early childhood health care programs and analyzed known intervention strategies applicable to immigrants, educational characteristics, and effects. In addition, to maximize the impact of the intervention, the participants and the surrounding environment were also carefully analyzed. These analyses revealed that marriage immigrant women experience communication difficulties and family conflicts due to cultural and language differences, and such family health issues affected children’s health-related behaviors. We also found that, while these women wanted to find health-related information online, they often had difficulty finding, selecting, and utilizing reliable information. In the expert analysis, we learned that these women often lack motivation to improve parenting quality and did not know how to effectively resolve family conflicts. The intervention program needed to address these areas.Second, for design and development stages, we designed the contents of the program to include information on growth and development, disease management, healthy living, vaccination, and nutrition, all based on the results of the above analysis and input from the participants and experts. First, we created user interface (UI) scenarios to develop the mobile application for marriage immigrant women to help them with parenting and improving the health of infants and young children in their families. An algorithm providing tailored health information for each registered child’s age was developed, and the health information provision flow was written as a UI scenario. The UI scenario according to personalized information regarding their child’s age and language was used to tailor the content of the mobile application.The application was developed by discussing the content to be implemented through the UI with two developers who have experience in developing multiple apps. A pilot test to assess the efficacy and safety of the developed mobile application was conducted on eight marriage immigrant women who had experience raising young children. After the participants had operated the mobile application for one week, we assessed factors such as stability of use, content readability, satisfaction with the application, and the ease and utility of information delivery. Based on the results, the mobile application was modified and improved to produce the final version.The final mobile application was named “DajeongDagam” (hereafter, DaDa), which is a Korean abbreviation for “coming closer to multicultural families” (see Screenshots of DaDa.Importantly, the information was constructed to provide a tailored experience, depending on the age of the child (in months). To provide personalized information, the participants provided their IDs, passwords, and countries of origin and their child’s date of birth. Based on these details, the participants were provided with information tailored to their child’s age in the language of their country of origin. To change participants’ behavior, the content of DaDa was not limited to information on childcare but also included the ability to log the child’s biological changes as well as providing instructional images and videos. Simple terminology was used to aid participants’ understanding, and a message board was established that allowed participants to share their personal experiences and information related to the care of young children. If the participants had a question, they could ask it through the Q&A message board in the mobile application, and an expert would respond within three days. We used the push function to motivate the target user to engage with the app. Content designed to capture the user’s attention was displayed, and upon clicking, it led them directly into the app.