Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Faculty of Health, Science, and Technology, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden.
Department of Health Science, Faculty of Health, Science, and Technology, Karlstad University, Sweden; Department of Health, Education and Technology, Division of Nursing and Medical Technology, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden.
Int J Med Inform. 2023 Sep;177:105139. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2023.105139. Epub 2023 Jul 3.
Pregnant women in early labour have felt excluded from professional care, and their partners have been restricted from being involved in the birthing process. Expectant parents must be better prepared to deal with fear and stress during early labour. There is a need for evidence-based information and digital applications that can empower couples during childbirth.
To develop and identify requirements for a practice-based mobile health (mHealth) application for Digital Early Labour Support.
This research started with creating an expert group composed of a multidisciplinary team capable of informing the app development process on evidence-based practices. In consultation with the expert group, the app was built using an agile development approach (i.e., Scrum) within a continuous software engineering setting (i.e., CI/CD, DevOps), also including user and security tests.
During the development of the Early Labour App, two main types of challenges emerged: (1) user challenges, related to understanding the users' needs and experience with the app, and (2) team challenges, related to the software development team in particular, and the necessary skills for translating an early labour intervention into a digital solution. This study reaffirms the importance of midwife support via blended care and the opportunity of complementing it with an app. The Early Labour App was easy to use, the women needed little to no help, and the partner's preparation was facilitated. The combination of the app together with blended care opens up awareness, thoughts and feelings about the method and provides good preparation for the birth.
We propose the creation of the Early Labour App, a mHealth app for early labour support. The preliminary tests conducted for the Early Labour App show that the app is mature, allowing it to be used in the project's Randomised Control Trial, which is already ongoing.
处于分娩早期的孕妇感到被专业护理所排斥，其伴侣也被限制参与分娩过程。准父母必须更好地准备应对分娩早期的恐惧和压力。需要有基于证据的信息和数字应用程序，以便在分娩期间为夫妇提供支持。
开发并确定基于实践的移动医疗（mHealth）应用程序“数字早期分娩支持”的需求。
本研究首先创建了一个由多学科团队组成的专家组，使他们能够为基于证据的实践提供应用程序开发过程的信息。在与专家组协商的基础上，使用敏捷开发方法（即 Scrum）在持续的软件工程环境（即 CI/CD、DevOps）中构建应用程序，还包括用户和安全测试。
在早期劳动应用程序的开发过程中，出现了两种主要类型的挑战：（1）用户挑战，与理解用户的需求和使用应用程序的经验有关；（2）团队挑战，与软件开发团队特别是与将早期劳动干预转化为数字解决方案所需的技能有关。本研究再次证实了通过混合护理为产妇提供支持的重要性，以及通过应用程序为其提供补充的机会。早期劳动应用程序易于使用，女性几乎不需要帮助，而且伴侣的准备工作也得到了促进。该应用程序与混合护理的结合提高了人们对该方法的认识、思考和感受，并为分娩做好了充分的准备。
我们提出创建早期劳动应用程序，这是一种用于早期分娩支持的移动医疗应用程序。针对早期劳动应用程序进行的初步测试表明，该应用程序已经成熟，可以在正在进行的随机对照试验中使用。
