Enhancing maternal nutrition: The development of Doojan, a gamified mHealth app for pregnant women.

Background: The widespread availability of smartphones has created new opportunities for engaging pregnant women and enhancing their self-management abilities to promote maternal and fetal health through mobile interventions. This study focuses on the design and development of a gamification-based mobile health (mHealth) application aimed at providing nutritional support to pregnant women.Methods: An iterative, user-centered design approach and Agile development method were employed to create the application. The developmental stages included identifying the application's features, the design and development process, and evaluation. End users assessed usability using the System Usability Scale (SUS), while experts evaluated quality using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS).Results: Feedback from experts and end users categorized the application's functionalities into general, specific, and gamification-related functions. Pregnant women rated the application's usability as acceptable (68.25 ± 10.86), and experts rated its quality as acceptable (mean 3.89 out of 5, SD 0.25).Conclusions: The positive evaluation results support the use of this application as a tool for managing gestational nutrition and enhancing self-awareness. Future research should investigate its impact on the nutritional status of pregnant women and their infants.