JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Mobile health (mHealth) management is an emerging strategy of care for patients with chronic diseases. mHealth has developed considerably over recent years, and it has been shown to promote communication between healthcare professionals and patients to improve the early detection of a worsening health status. However, the effect of mHealth management on clinical outcomes of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) has not been well-studied.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of mHealth on disease knowledge and self-care behavior compared with traditional education in patients with CKD.

Methods:

Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital designed and developed a new healthcare mobile application, called iCKD. The application has several major features, including home-based physiological signal monitoring, disease health education, nutrition analysis, medication reminder, and alarms and a warning system to promote self-care for patients with CKD. Using structured questionnaires of disease knowledge and self-care behavior, trained nurses interviewed patients with CKD who received traditional or mobile education. After propensity score matching, we analyzed 107 patients who used iCKD, and 107 who received traditional health education.

Results:

The mean age of all study participants was 63.9±11.5 years, and 59.3 % were male. The patients who used iCKD had higher disease knowledge scores than those who received traditional education (24.6±6.6 v.s. 22.6±5.3, p=0.02). In multivariate analysis, iCKD was significantly and positively associated with disease knowledge scores (β=1.78, p=0.02). Patients with high education level could have greater disease knowledge through using mHealth (β=3.16, p=0.001). However, there was no significant difference in total scores of self-care behavior between the two groups.

Conclusions:

mHealth can significantly increase disease knowledge in patients with CKD.