[Unpad Media Channel] Puspa Sari, S.ST., M.Keb., a professor of nursing at Universitas Padjadjaran, pointed out the importance for teenage girls to be aware of the risks of anemia. By preventing and treating anemia from the time they are teenagers, it can hopefully help prevent many health concerns caused by anemia at pregnancy and labor.
For that, Puspa proposed an app to increase teenage awareness of anemia. The app is called “Wanoja Anti Anemia Pinter tur Cageur“, or “Wanter” for short. In Sundanese, the full name of the app translates to “Healthy and Smart Anti-Anemia Women”. Meanwhile, wanter itself means “brave”.
In 2021, Puspa and her team interviewed several teenage girls in 16 schools in Soreang, Bandung Regency. The results of the interview showed that their knowledge, attitude, and lifestyle is still less than optimal to prevent anemia. Wanter was then created as part of an intervention.
“This is because the teenagers now are literate on technology, including with smartphones,” explained Puspa.
The app contains educational material on the prevention of anemia, in the form of animation videos, regarding the cause, effects, symptoms, and ways of prevention. Aside from that, there is also material regarding balanced nutritional intake and physical activities.
The app also contains tools to measure age, body mass index, calory needs, and menstrual cycle timeframes. The Wanter app also provides consultation services regarding anemia.
The Wanter app has been tested on a number of teenage girls in high school, vocational schools, and Islamic schools in Soreang at the beginning of 2022. After three months, there was a noticeable increase in their knowledge, attitude, and stance toward anemia prevention.
“Before we could intervene, we looked at the results of the pre-test regarding their nutritional intake, knowledge, and attitude towards anemia. After that, we carried out the three-month long intervention and did a post-test afterward. Thank God, their knowledge and attitude improved, as well as their eating habits, after using Wanter,” said Puspa.
Puspa said that nutritional intake is an important aspect of the effort to prevent anemia. That is why a balanced diet is integral.
“The nutrition we get from food is divided into macronutrients and micronutrients, micronutrients may include iron. If the teenagers lack iron in their diet, that is one cause of anemia,” explained Puspa.
The Wanter app can even tell if the portion on someone’s daily diet is sufficient.
“So the teenagers would include how many portions they would eat in a day, then the result from the app would tell them if that was enough,” said Puspa.
In some regions, Puspa still found several teenagers suffering from anemia. According to her, that was because of the still-lacking intake of nutrition, especially iron, vitamin C, and protein.
“Their diet is not very healthy. I saw that their snacks in school were not healthy, that is where the parents’ role is needed. Many parents do not provide breakfast or food for their child, so the child has to buy food from outside,” said Puspa.
Aside from that, Puspa also explained that anemia might also happen to those with adequately nutritious, but not absorbed, diets. This happens because of several things, such as infection, genetic disorders, worms, and abnormal menstrual cycles.
With the Wanter app, Puspa also tries to increase the people’s awareness to quickly visit health professionals should they have symptoms of anemia as described in the educational material.
Besides the increase in knowledge and attitude surrounding anemia, the application has also gotten several positive comments from users. Puspa explained that some of the comments praised the interesting educational material, such as the use of animation, the ability to use the app whenever and wherever, and the abundance of important information that the users can get regarding anemia.
Before it was launched and used as an object of study, the app had gone through testing by experts and users, as well as updated based on feedback from the tests.
Currently, the users of the app are spread over several regions. Puspa also hoped that the app could continue to be developed going forward. As of now, the app has gotten copyright protection.
Through the app, Puspa is hopeful that teenage girls in Indonesia, especially in the Bandung Regency, can be free of anemia. This will prepare them for marriage and pregnancy.
“Hopefully, with the Wanter app, their knowledge, attitude, and practice of prevention as well as their awareness towards anemia shall improve even more. This is so when they get married, both the mother and child will be healthy,” said Puspa. (arm/ICP)*
