Background
Hypertension disorders are relatively common in pregnant women and often persist in the postpartum period. Few studies are available regarding the self-management of postpartum hypertension via the eHealth system. This study aimed to develop a self-management eHealth system for women with postpartum hypertension during the postpartum period.
Methods
We adopted a multi-platform system for this research, not only for use on the web interface but also on smartphones. The proposed system possessed three features: (1) the population was limited to postnatal women with hypertension; (2) a self-care record, which allowed postnatal women to keep track of their blood pressure, pulse, weight, medication record, exercise record, and risk factor assessment; and (3) through this system, nurse-midwives could keep track of postnatal women’s health status maintaining the complete record and could communicate directly with the users if their health monitor values reach beyond normal range.
Results
Thirty-nine postnatal women with postpartum hypertension were recruited to the study. A survey to evaluate the usability and satisfaction of the proposed e-health application system was completed by these women. The usability rate of the system reached 92.4% (46.2% satisfied and 46.2% strongly satisfied), which suggested that the system was helpful to the users. The satisfaction rate of the system reached 94.9% (43.6% satisfied and 51.3% strongly satisfied), which suggested that the system was acceptable to the users.
Conclusion
This proposed system has been developed completely with user experience and professional advice from experts. Postnatal women could gain important postpartum-related knowledge and access their related health records and other information easily via their smartphones or computers. During the postpartum period, an eHealth application system can effectively assist women with hypertension to manage their blood pressure and related postnatal healthcare issues.
High blood pressure would present in postpartum women diagnosed with hypertension during their perinatal period. Few studies are available regarding the self-management of postnatal hypertension via the eHealth system. This study aimed to develop a self-management eHealth system for women with postnatal hypertension during the postpartum period. We applied this system on multi-platform, not only on web interface but also on the platform of varied smartphones. The proposed system possessed three novel features: (1) Population was limited to postnatal women with hypertension; (2) self-care record, which allowed the postnatal women to keep tracking their blood pressure, pulse, weight, medication record, exercise record, and risk factor assessment; and (3) through this system, nurse-midwife could keep track of postnatal women's health status maintaining the complete record and could communicate directly with the users if their health monitor values reach beyond normal range. A survey was conducted among the postnatal women to evaluate the usability and acceptance of the eHealth system. The results showed that the overall satisfaction rate of the system reached 94.9% suggesting that the system was helpful to the users.
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