The Participatory Methodology Adopted to Develop an mHealth App as an Educational Tool to Promote Organizational Health Literacy at a Maternal and Child Health Hospital

Patients and caregivers’ low health literacy and unmet health information needs may compromise an equitable access and navigation through the healthcare system and positive health outcomes. The aim of this three-year study was to describe the participatory methodology, characterized by the application of a user-centred approach, used to develop a mobile health application (MHA) as an educational tool to promote organizational health literacy at a maternal and child health hospital. More in detail, the MHA was designed to support the information and education of two specific categories of hospital end-users, that is expectant and new parents and their children in the first 1000 days of life, and caregivers of children undergoing otolaryngology surgery during the perioperative process. The Information System Research framework informed the participatory methodology illustrated in the study, thus providing an evidence-based foundation, allowing for an exploration of end-users’ information needs as well as a user-centred designing and development of the MHA content, functionalities, and technical features.