Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Phone-based Recommender System for Patients with Cardiac Arrhythmia

Cardiovascular disease is one of the main causes of death worldwide. One of the important factors is readmission due to the lack of training. Considering the widespread use of mobile phones, this study aimed to design a recommender system for patients with cardiac arrhythmia.

This is an applied-developmental study that was conducted in a quantitative (descriptive) method and in 2 stages. First, the recommended educational parameters and application requirements of the software were determined based on literature review. Then, the obtained contents were provided to 16 cardiologists working in Shahid Rajaei and Hazrat Rasool Akram Hospitals in Tehran. To evaluate the usability, the application was given to 50 patients with cardiac arrhythmia and was checked with the quiz questionnaire version 5.5.

In the recommendations section, experts deemed all items except "Omega-3 consumption" necessary. In the usability evaluation section, the items "Identifying the nearest emergency center, sending the patient’s geographic location to the doctor, finding the nearest medical center, and the possibility of changing color, and calculating BMI" were not confirmed. The usability evaluation of the application with an average score of 7.98±0.62 indicates a good level.

The mobile-based recommender application can cause the patients to play a greater role in their treatment and acquire skills in the field of training after hospital discharge and lead to a reduction in re-hospitalization and cost.