Multi-Lingual Mobile Application to Improve the Pharmaceutical Care of Patients in Ethiopia

Abstract

Delivering essential information for patients concerning medication they’re taking is vital and improves healthcare services. Due to heavy burdens in every pharmacy, patients in Ethiopia do not get proper advice about the medicinal drugs they’re taking from the pharmacist. Moreover, it is far tough to recognize and interpret the various written instruction on remedy labels or package deal leaflet while not heaving the domain knowledge. As Ethiopia is an importer of many medicinal drugs from abroad, very often the package leaflets are not written in the local language. Therefore, due to language barrier, most of the patients cannot comprehend the information on medication labels and on package leaflet. In this regards most patients purchase the medication without a proper understanding of how to use the medication. This necessitates a technological based solution which serves patients in their language when they want an advice. This study demonstrates the design and implementation of a mobile-based solution to minimize such challenges and improve patient access to the medicinal drugs information. The requirements of the proposed system gathered using interview from pharmacist, doctors, technical expert, and client. Finally, a mobile application prototype is developed and evaluated for its effectiveness.