Identifying required data elements for designing mobile-based application for self-care of women living with endometriosis

According to WHO, 190 million reproductive-aged women are affected by endometriosis. Using self-care interventions has a significant impact on managing endometriosis-related pain. Despite the enormous potential of different endometriosis applications, the medical professionals’ role has been neglected in the process of app development. This study aimed to extract the requirements for developing a mobile-based app for self-care of endometriosis patients through an overview of the literature and validate them according to the expert gynecologists’ point of view.

This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in two steps. First, endometriosis-related articles were reviewed. Second, a researcher-made questionnaire (Cronbach’s alpha=0.98) was designed to validate the identified information elements. Elements that obtained at least an average score of 3.2 (60%) out of 5-point Likert scale, were considered as required data elements for designing an android-based mobile app for self-care of endometriosis patients.

Based on the literature review, 36 studies were retrieved and 126 data elements were extracted. The elements were classified into six categories including electronic health record, educational materials, follow-up, pain management, nutritional diet, and lifestyle. All data elements except “using traditional opioids/drugs” were verified.

In this study, a minimum data set was achieved for designing an endometriosis mobile app. Since due to the lack of international standards for designing health apps, the results of this research can be beneficial for the design and development of endometriosis apps. In the current research, an effort has been made to study all related references carefully in order to provide a comprehensive data set for designing and developing an app. This data set could be useful not only for designing a mobile-based app but also for the design of any other systems which is related to endometriosis.