JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Concussion is a common injury amongst Canadian children and adolescents that leads to a range of neurobehavioral deficits. However, noticeable gaps continue to exist in the management of pediatric concussion with inadequate application of best practice guidelines that can lead to poor health outcomes.

Objective:

To describe the development and assess the usability of a smartphone application to aid youth in self-managing concussion. A secondary objective was to assess the usefulness of the application.

Methods:

An agile user-centered design approach was used to develop the technology, followed by a formative lab-based usability study for assessment and improvement proposals. Youth ages 10 to 18 years with a history of concussion and healthcare professionals involved in concussion management were recruited. The study included participants performing 12 tasks with the smartphone application while using the ‘think aloud’ protocol, administration of the System Usability Scale (SUS), post-test questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview.

Results:

Developed a smartphone application prototype ‘NeuroCare’ that is an easily accessible pediatric concussion management intervention which provides easy access to expert informed concussion management strategies and helps guide youth in self-managing and tracking their concussion recovery. Seven youth ages 10 to 18 years with a history of concussion and seven healthcare professionals were recruited. The mean SUS score was 81.9, mean task success rates were greater than 90% for 92% (11/12) of tasks, 92% (11/12) of tasks had a total error frequency of less than 11 errors, and mean task completion times were less than 2 minutes for 100% of tasks.

Conclusions:

Results suggest this application has high usability, is acceptable to users, and may be useful in helping youth self-manage concussion.