Development and evaluation of a self-care application based on herbal medicine for skin and hair diseases

Shahmoradi, Leila; Izadi, Nakisa; Shirbeigi, Laila; Nazari, Reza; Rezayi, Sorayya

Development and evaluation of a self-care application based on herbal medicine for skin and hair diseases

Authors

¹ Department of Health Information Management and Medical Informatics, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran

² Master of Science in Health Information Technology, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran

³ Department of Persian Medicine, School of Persian Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran

⁴ Master of Science in Medical Informatics, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background: Self-care applications are effective in the control and treatment of disease symptoms. Today, the mobile phone is used as one of the tools that can help us in this regard. The present study attempts to develop and evaluate a functional self-care mobile-phone application for patients with skin and hair problems using treatment protocols of herbal medicine.
Materials and Methods: This study is a descriptive-applied type. At first, a questionnaire was prepared for data need assessment and also to determine the data items and required capabilities of the application. Based on the results, an application was designed using the Java programing language in the Android software environment. In the next step, the application was installed on the mobile phones of several specialists and patients, and the necessary corrections were made. Then, the final version of the application was evaluated.
Results: The most critical data elements of the mobile application for skin and hair patients included the application's functionality, temperament survey, and clinical information. After considering users' feedback, the screen functionality, the application's information and idiom, and overall functionality of the application were evaluated and approved by the users.
Conclusion: By and large, the developed application could help the patients to receive the best and high-priority treatment protocols based on their own temperament.

Keywords

References

1.	Fowler Jr JF, Woolery-Lloyd H, Waldorf H, Saini R. Innovations in natural ingredients and their use in skin care. J Drugs Dermatol 2010;9 (6 Suppl):S72-81.
2.	Koblenzer C. A neglected but crucial aspect of skin function: A challenge for the 90s. Int J Dermatol 1990;29:185-6.
3.	Zhang M, Wang C, Zhang R, Chen Y, Zhang C, Heidi H, et al. Comparison of the guidelines on good agricultural and collection practices in herbal medicine of the European Union, China, the WHO, and the United States of America. Pharmacol Res 2021;167:105533.
4.	Wang Y, Yu Q. The treatment of menopausal symptoms by traditional Chinese medicine in Asian countries. Climacteric 2021;24:64-7.
5.	Kalaaji AN, Wahner-Roedler DL, Sood A, Chon TY, Loehrer LL, Cha SS, et al. Use of complementary and alternative medicine by patients seen at the dermatology department of a tertiary care center. Complement Ther Clin Pract 2012;18:49-53.
6.	Alam MZ, Ahmad Khan MS. Phytomedicine from Middle Eastern countries: An alternative remedy to modern medicine against Candida spp infection. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2021;2021:6694876.
7.	Nie D, Lu J, Zhang H, Adeli E, Wang J, Yu Z, et al. Multi-channel 3D deep feature learning for survival time prediction of brain tumor patients using multi-modal neuroimages. Sci Rep 2019;9:1-14.
8.	Silva BM, Lopes IM, Rodrigues JJ, Ray P. SapoFitness: A mobile health application for dietary evaluation. In: 2011 IEEE 13^th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Applications and Services. IEEE; 2011. p. 375-380.
9.	Safdari R, Masouri N, Ghazi Saeedi M, Sharifian R, Soltani A, Shahmoradi L. Wireless and mobile systems in telemedicine. ISMJ. 2012;15:327-38.
10.	Zaki NA, Hamid H. Android Animation Application for Malaysian Natural Herbal Medicine. Research and Innovation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training 2021;1:100-6.
11.	Mohamadirizi S, Bahadoran P, Fahami F. Comparison between the impacts of e-learning and booklet education on nulliparous women's satisfaction about postpartum care. Iran J Obstet Gynecol Infertil 2013;16:1-8.
12.	Lowe ME, Andersen DK, Caprioli RM, Choudhary J, Cruz-Monserrate Z, Dasyam AK, et al. Precision medicine in pancreatic disease—knowledge gaps and research opportunities: Summary of a National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Workshop. Pancreas 2019;48:1250-8.
13.	Shahmoradi L, Izadi N, Shirbeigi L, Kandi MJ, Barzegari S, Rezayi S. Minimum data set as a necessity for designing a mobile-based self-care application for skin and hair diseases. Australian J Herbal and Naturopathic Med 2021;33:72-80.
14.	Kim KB, Park HJ, Song DH. Self health diagnosis system for Korean traditional medicine with enhanced ART2. Adv Sci Technol Lett 2013;33:16-9.
15.	Yuan SLK, Marques AP. Development of ProFibro—A mobile application to promote self-care in patients with fibromyalgia. Physiotherapy 2018;104:311-7.
16.	Plachkinova M, Faddoul G, Chatterjee S, editors. Designing a mobile application for complementary and alternative medicine: A usability approach. International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Springer, 2015.
17.	Bjering H, Ginige A, Maeder A, Bensoussan A, Zhu X, Lattuca C. Electronic medical record information system for patient consultations in Chinese medicine. Health Informatics: The Transformative Power of Innovation. IOS Press; 2011. p. 10-5.
18.	Spanakis M, Sfakianakis S, Spanakis EG, Kallergis G, Sakkalis V, editors. PDCA: An eHealth service for the management of drug interactions with complementary and alternative medicines. 2018 IEEE EMBS International Conference on Biomedical & Health Informatics (BHI), IEEE, 2018.
19.	Zare Bidaki M. Rajabpur Sanati A, Rahmanian Sahrifabad A. Design and production of electronic books, mobile learning content to provide a new model of medical sciences. J Med Educ Dev 2012;9:18-24.
20.	Nilashi M, Ahmadi H, Shahmoradi L, Mardani A, Ibrahim O, Yadegaridehkordi E. Knowledge discovery and diseases prediction: A comparative study of machine learning techniques. J Soft Comput Decis Support Syst 2017;4:8-16.
21.	Shahmoradi L, Ahmadi M, Sadoughi F, Piri Z, Gohari MR. A comprehensive model for executing knowledge management audits in organizations: A systematic review. Health Care Manag 2015;34:28-40.

Advanced Biomedical Research