Dissertation: Impact of mHealth on Diabetic Self-Management Care

This dissertation proposal investigates the impact of mHealth (mobile health) on enhancing self-management care for diabetic patients. It begins with an overview of mHealth, defining it as the use of mobile devices and wireless technologies to support healthcare delivery and information dissemination. The research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of mHealth in improving diabetic patients' self-management, focusing on blood glucose monitoring and adherence to therapy. The research objectives include analyzing the concept of mHealth, determining the aspects of self-management care for diabetic patients, and evaluating the benefits of mHealth for this population. The research will utilize a change model approach, incorporating stages like Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance, and Relapse to understand patient adoption of mHealth technologies. The rationale emphasizes the need for diabetic patients to carefully manage their daily habits and blood sugar levels, highlighting mHealth's role in providing support through various applications and techniques. The methodology will include a literature review to gather information from books, journals, and scholarly articles. The research design will be a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, utilizing both primary and secondary data sources to analyze the impact of mobile health on self-management care in diabetic patients. The research will incorporate a timescale and provide references to support the findings.

DISSERTATION
PROPOSAL

Table of Contents
Title .................................................................................................................................................1
Overview of the research.................................................................................................................1
Framework of the research...............................................................................................................1
Research Objectives...............................................................................................................2
Research Questions................................................................................................................2
Major approach.......................................................................................................................2
Rationale of research..............................................................................................................2
Significance of research.........................................................................................................2
Positioning of the research...............................................................................................................3
Research design & methodology.....................................................................................................3
Timescale................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Title
“To evaluate the impact of mhealth to enhance self management care of diabetic
patients.”
Overview of the research
The mhealth stands for mobile health which can be described as effective practices of
medicine and public health support with the help of certain devices such as mobile phones,
tablets, personal digital assistances and wireless infrastructure. It basically consist the overall
applications of telecommunications and technologies of multimedia in context of delivering
healthcare services as well as relevant information to people for their welfare. However, there are
various kinds of medical services which are provided to to needy individuals with the help of
different applications through mobile (Garabedian, Ross-Degnan and Wharam, 2015). Moreover,
it include mobile clinics which can be considered as customised vehicles that travel to the heart
of communities that is both urban and rural in order to provide healthcare services and
prevention techniques to people for their well-being. It is helpful to people in terms of providing
information about precautions to avoid diseases and medical services to solve specific health
problem accordingly.
The concept of mhaelth is beneficial for patients suffering from diabetes in terms of
managing their blood glucose for remaining healthy. It is helpful to make people empower with
diabetes to self monitor blood glucose for maintaining it properly. Moreover, the patients and
physicians can achieve pre-set targets and with respect of disease progress as well as adherence
to therapy. In addition to this, mhealth provide support and allow physicians to facilitate patients
self- care along with improving outputs with potential cost savings. Meanwhile, patients portals
are prepared in which carers can update information about precautions & actions and service
users can provide feedbacks regarding their current situations regularly which facilitate to gain
immediate medication along with reducing complications accordingly (Hood and et. al., 2016).
The present report will focus on enhancing self management care of diabetic patients with the
help of mhealth.
Framework of the research
Aim:
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“To evaluate the impact of mhealth to enhance self management care of diabetic
patients.”
Research Objectives
 To analyse the concept of mhealth in health and social care.
 To determine the aspects self management care of patients with diabetes.
 To evaluate the benefits of mhealth for patients suffering from diabetes.
Research Questions
 What is the concept of mhealth in health and social care?
 How to determine the aspects self management care of patients with diabetes?
 What are the benefits of mhealth for patients suffering from diabetes
Major approach
Change model is one of the effective approach which could be utilised for self
management care of diabetic patients where individuals could easily adopt new trends that are
coming in modern world. Here, mhealth is a new mobile application that can be used by patients
and health care providers as well. It consist of different stages like Precontemplation,
Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance and Relapse that can be used by mhealth in
specific time frame.
Rationale of research
The basic requirement of producing this research is that, people are having issues of
diabetes are required to remain careful in their daily life in context of their eating habits, physical
work out and other activities which impact on their blood sugar levels. Additionally, mhealth
consist various applications and techniques which provide support to diabetic people for
managing their sugar levels to become well-being.
Significance of research
The present report based on benefits of mhealth for diabetic patients to improve self
management care is important to analyse the significance of mhealth for remaining healthy. It
include to evaluate the concept of mhealth along with its uses for maintaining health of diabetic
patients with the help of managing sugar levels. However, it is helpful to determine the benefits
of using relevant tools of mobile health which provide support to people for avoiding
complicated situations regarding diabetes (Knight, Stuckey and Petrella, 2014).
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Positioning of the research
Literature review refers to conduct survey by analysing books, journals, scholarly articles
and gather information about specific topic from different sources for investigations. The present
research is based on impact of mobile health in terms of enhancing self management care in
patients suffering from diabetes. However, mhealth is helpful to monitor variety of medical
conditions such as diabetes, insomnia, autism, heart disease, asthma and many more which
facilitate an individual to take precautions on time. There are various common uses of mobile
health like education & awareness about disease, diagnostic & treatment support, disease &
epidemic outbreak tracking, healthcare supply chain management, remote data collection and
chronic disease management.
As per view point of Sally Moyle (2019), the mhealth provides various benefits like
monitoring of health situation in sick people who are at risk. It is supportive in context to allow
patients for earlier interventions and potentially reduce number of admissions of patients in
hospital. However, people can remain in touch with specialist to gain information, treatment
adherence and contacting medical professionals. Moreover, healthcare professionals become
capable to update precautions and other activities for diabetic patients which help them to remain
healthy by maintaining sugar levels in blood properly. In addition to this, it is very helpful to
take immediate actions through guidance of specialist when they are physically not available
which facilitate to control the situation and avoid complications for diabetic people. Meanwhile,
updation of information by physicians are helpful for such patients as they can enhance the
management of blood sugar levels to maintain their health accurately.
Research design & methodology
The research methodology can be described as different methods to conduct investigation
on particular topic which are suitable to make accurate results of the same. Initially, it consist
types of research including qualitative and quantitative in which more more suitable method can
be used according to the topic and data will utilised for investigation (Al-Taee and et. al., 2015).
Quantitative research consist facts, figures and other statistical information by conducting
surveys experiments etc. whereas qualitative include subjective information through carrying out
interviews, focus groups & observations for making conclusions respectively. Moreover, the
research design consist descriptive, exploratory and experimental in which more appropriate one
can be used for conducting research.
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At the other hand, data collection can be done through primary and secondary sources for
analysing facts about topic in order to make results (Brzan and et. al., 2016). Primary sources can
be described as to gather information from original documents such as speeches, letters,
interviews, eyewitness accounts, autobiographies, observations and surveys. These are methods
of gathering fresh data by putting efforts to conduct interviews, survey, observation etc.
Secondary sources refers to collect data from books, journals, articles, magazines, histories,
websites and so on. These sources are recorded previously by other investigators which can be
analysed to make proper outcomes of research (Chang and et. al., 2016).
Timescale
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Garabedian, L. F., Ross-Degnan, D. and Wharam, J. F., 2015. Mobile phone and smartphone
technologies for diabetes care and self-management. Current diabetes reports. 15(12).
p.109.
Hood, M. and et. al., 2016. What do we know about mobile applications for diabetes self-
management? A review of reviews. Journal of behavioral medicine. 39(6). pp.981-994.
Knight, E., Stuckey, M. I. and Petrella, R. J., 2014. Health promotion through primary care:
enhancing self-management with activity prescription and mHealth. The Physician and
sportsmedicine. 42(3). pp.90-99.
Al-Taee, M. A. and et. al., 2015, November. Mobile health platform for diabetes management
based on the Internet-of-Things. In Applied Electrical Engineering and Computing
Technologies (AEECT), 2015 IEEE Jordan Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Brzan, P. P. and et. al., 2016. Mobile applications for control and self management of diabetes: a
systematic review. Journal of medical systems. 40(9). p.210.
Chang, S. H. and et. al., 2016. A context-aware, interactive M-health system for diabetics. IT
Professional. (3). pp.14-22.
Online
Moyle S., 2019. What is mhealth Technology? [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.ausmed.com/articles/what-is-mhealth/>
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