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Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app

BACKGROUND: Lyme borreliosis (LB) is the most common reported tick-borne infection in Europe, and involves transmission of Borrelia by ticks. As long as a vaccine is not available and effective measures for controlling tick populations are insufficient, LB control is focused on preventive measures t...

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Autores principales: Antonise-Kamp, L., Beaujean, D. J. M. A., Crutzen, R., van Steenbergen, J. E., Ruwaard, D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716000/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29202704
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-017-2836-4
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author Antonise-Kamp, L.
Beaujean, D. J. M. A.
Crutzen, R.
van Steenbergen, J. E.
Ruwaard, D.
author_facet Antonise-Kamp, L.
Beaujean, D. J. M. A.
Crutzen, R.
van Steenbergen, J. E.
Ruwaard, D.
author_sort Antonise-Kamp, L.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Lyme borreliosis (LB) is the most common reported tick-borne infection in Europe, and involves transmission of Borrelia by ticks. As long as a vaccine is not available and effective measures for controlling tick populations are insufficient, LB control is focused on preventive measures to avoid tick bites. To inform citizens about the risk of ticks, motivate them to check for tick bites, and encourage them to remove any attached tick as quickly as possible, a mobile app called ‘Tekenbeet’ (Dutch for ‘tick bite’) was developed and released. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usage and user satisfaction of the ‘Tekenbeet’ app and to investigate whether it affects users’ knowledge, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, self-efficacy, response efficacy, current behavior and intention to comply with preventive measures. METHODS: Usage of the app was evaluated with data obtained from Google Analytics. A survey among the Dutch general adult population with two data collection periods evaluated the usage, user satisfaction and its influence on abovementioned outcomes. RESULTS: Data obtained from Google Analytics showed the app was downloaded almost 40,000 in the 20 months following the launch. The ‘tick radar’ and ‘tick diary’ screens were viewed most often. In addition, a total of 554 respondents completed an online survey. The mean user satisfaction score was 7.44 (on a scale of 1–10) and 90.9% of respondents would recommend the app to others. On average, survey respondents who downloaded the app (n = 243) recorded significantly more often higher knowledge scores (OR 3.37; 95% CI 2.02–5.09) and had a higher intention to comply with preventive measures (OR 2.47; 95% CI 1.22–5.85) compared to respondents who did not download the app (n = 311). CONCLUSIONS: The ‘Tekenbeet’ app is a frequently used and well-appreciated educational tool to increase public knowledge of ticks and tick bites. It also helps to improve the user’s intention to apply preventive measures. The use of smartphones and apps is now commonplace in the Netherlands; the ‘Tekenbeet’ app feeds into this trend and thereby offers a modern day alternative to established formats such as an information leaflet and information provision on the Internet. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12879-017-2836-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-57160002017-12-08 Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app Antonise-Kamp, L. Beaujean, D. J. M. A. Crutzen, R. van Steenbergen, J. E. Ruwaard, D. BMC Infect Dis Research Article BACKGROUND: Lyme borreliosis (LB) is the most common reported tick-borne infection in Europe, and involves transmission of Borrelia by ticks. As long as a vaccine is not available and effective measures for controlling tick populations are insufficient, LB control is focused on preventive measures to avoid tick bites. To inform citizens about the risk of ticks, motivate them to check for tick bites, and encourage them to remove any attached tick as quickly as possible, a mobile app called ‘Tekenbeet’ (Dutch for ‘tick bite’) was developed and released. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usage and user satisfaction of the ‘Tekenbeet’ app and to investigate whether it affects users’ knowledge, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, self-efficacy, response efficacy, current behavior and intention to comply with preventive measures. METHODS: Usage of the app was evaluated with data obtained from Google Analytics. A survey among the Dutch general adult population with two data collection periods evaluated the usage, user satisfaction and its influence on abovementioned outcomes. RESULTS: Data obtained from Google Analytics showed the app was downloaded almost 40,000 in the 20 months following the launch. The ‘tick radar’ and ‘tick diary’ screens were viewed most often. In addition, a total of 554 respondents completed an online survey. The mean user satisfaction score was 7.44 (on a scale of 1–10) and 90.9% of respondents would recommend the app to others. On average, survey respondents who downloaded the app (n = 243) recorded significantly more often higher knowledge scores (OR 3.37; 95% CI 2.02–5.09) and had a higher intention to comply with preventive measures (OR 2.47; 95% CI 1.22–5.85) compared to respondents who did not download the app (n = 311). CONCLUSIONS: The ‘Tekenbeet’ app is a frequently used and well-appreciated educational tool to increase public knowledge of ticks and tick bites. It also helps to improve the user’s intention to apply preventive measures. The use of smartphones and apps is now commonplace in the Netherlands; the ‘Tekenbeet’ app feeds into this trend and thereby offers a modern day alternative to established formats such as an information leaflet and information provision on the Internet. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12879-017-2836-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5716000/ /pubmed/29202704 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-017-2836-4 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Antonise-Kamp, L.
Beaujean, D. J. M. A.
Crutzen, R.
van Steenbergen, J. E.
Ruwaard, D.
Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app
title Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app
title_full Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app
title_fullStr Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app
title_full_unstemmed Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app
title_short Prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app
title_sort prevention of tick bites: an evaluation of a smartphone app
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716000/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29202704
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-017-2836-4
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