Effectiveness of an mHealth application to improve hypertension health literacy in India.

AIM The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of a mobile health or mHealth application to improve hypertension health literacy among vulnerable populations in India. Additionally, we sought to estimate relationships between participant knowledge on hypertension and sociodemographic variables. BACKGROUND The World Health Organization advocates for the use of mobile technology to improve public health outcomes. INTRODUCTION The incidence of hypertension is on the rise in India, and effective and sustainable interventions are needed. METHODS A quantitative single arm pre-test post-test interventional and correlational design was used to test the hypertension mHealth application among participants in a limited resource setting. A paired t-test was performed to compare pre- and post-test results after participant use of the mHealth application. A regression model was used to estimate relationships between participant hypertension health literacy and sociodemographic variables. RESULTS A statistically significant improvement in test scores among participants after use of the mHealth app was found. Sociodemographic characteristics such as living in an urban environment, married, increased number of people living in household and alcohol use were determined to have a statistically significant effect on improvement of test score. DISCUSSION Results indicated the application was effective among participants with varied literacy and health literacy levels. These findings contribute to the potential widespread scalability of the app among populations with varied demographics. CONCLUSION This application provides an effective and valuable culturally tailored educational resource for nurses and other health providers to use to improve hypertension health literacy among vulnerable populations in India. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE AND HEALTH POLICY This study contributes to nursing and health policy by answering a call from the World Health Organization to implement and research mHealth interventions to improve health outcomes, particularly in a low and middle income country where preventive health access is limited.