Design, development, and testing of a voice-text mobile health application to support Tuberculosis medication adherence in Uganda

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to persist with a high disease burden globally. Non-adherence to treatment remains a major problem to TB control. In Uganda, one in every four TB patients does not adhere to their TB medication. The purpose of this study was to design, develop and assess implementation of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2022-09, Vol.17 (9), p.e0274112-e0274112
Main Authors: Katende, Kenneth Kidonge, Amiyo, Mercy R, Nabukeera, Sarah, Mugisa, Ian, Kaggwa, Patrick, Namatovu, Stellah, Atwiine, Simon Peter, Kasasa, Simon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applications programs
Cellular telephones
Community
Computer and Information Sciences
Content analysis
Cost analysis
Design
Drug therapy
Drugs
Engineering and Technology
Evaluation
Health services
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus
Hypertext
Information technology
Medical personnel
Medication adherence
Medicine and Health Sciences
Messages
Methods
Microprocessors
Mobile computing
Patient compliance
Patients
People and Places
Research methodology
Short message service
Side effects
Telemedicine
Text messaging
Tuberculosis
Voice
Womens health
Workers
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Summary:Tuberculosis (TB) continues to persist with a high disease burden globally. Non-adherence to treatment remains a major problem to TB control. In Uganda, one in every four TB patients does not adhere to their TB medication. The purpose of this study was to design, develop and assess implementation of a voice-text-based mobile application to support TB patients' adherence to medication. During problem identification, Stigma, transport costs, being asymptomatic, drug side effects, lack of family support were identified as challenges affecting adherence. Technologies identified and used for the development of the voice-text application included; extensible mark-up language (XML) File, Apache server, Ubuntu Server, Hypertext Pre-processor, and jQuery. In the pilot study, 27 voice messages were broadcasted, 85.2% were delivered, 103 text messages were sent and 92.2% were delivered to the intended recipients. Voice-text message mobile health application can be used to reach a wider patient population and it has the capability of addressing some of the challenges affecting TB medication adherence.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0274112