Development of ProFibro — a mobile application to promote self-care in patients with fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a rheumatic syndrome characterised by chronic widespread pain, often associated with fatigue, unrefreshed sleep and cognitive problems. Effective management of fibromyalgia requires a proactive approach in which the patient takes responsibility for self-care. The purpose of this research was to develop an application (app) for promoting self-care as a complementary Mobile Health resource to physical therapy in the management of fibromyalgia. The app was developed in five stages, according to the prototyping paradigm. In Stage 1, an expert panel of five physical therapists, five patients with fibromyalgia, a digital interface designer and a programmer analysed the requirements and content, and set the software objectives. In Stage 2, the designer created the screen layouts. In Stage 3, the programmer developed the prototype for the Android operating system (Google Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA). In Stage 4, the prototype was pilot tested regarding its quality of use by 10 patients with fibromyalgia. Finally, in Stage 5, the designer improved the interface and the programmer built the final product.

This article describes the development of ProFibro, the first free mobile app in Brazilian Portuguese for fibromyalgia. Its functions are patient education through animation, self-monitoring, sleep strategies, scheduling, graded exercise programme, practice of gratitude, family adjustments and hints through notifications.