RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Stroke is highly prevalent in Latin America and one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. Educating children about stroke has been established as an effective method to detect symptoms early, reduce hospital visits, and raise awareness among adults. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the effectiveness of a mobile application to improve knowledge and understanding of stroke among children. METHOD: We conducted a focus group session including 12 children in order to analyze the behavior of 6 questions previously validated by expert neurologists. Subsequently, 105 primary school students between the ages of 7 and 12 completed a questionnaire on stroke symptoms and how to contact the emergency services before and after using an application on stroke symptoms. Qualitative analyses and the Student t test were used to verify the existence of differences between pre- and post-intervention test results. RESULTS: After a single 40-min working session with the application, between 50% and 67% of the children were able to identify the signs of stroke, and 96.2% knew the national emergency services telephone number. Statistical analysis revealed statistically significant differences before and after the intervention with the digital application (t=19.54; p<0.001) and intragroup differences in the post-intervention test results (t=40.71; p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Primary school children who used our digital application increased their knowledge, understanding, and learning of stroke symptoms.