Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Sep 13, 2018
Date Accepted: Jul 19, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Considerations in the Design and Development of Smoking Cessation Apps: Smokers and Providers Perspectives in China
ABSTRACT
Background:
Although there are more than 60 smartphone applications (apps) for smoking cessation in China, many do not include the content and features that health professionals and smokers prefer—which may make them impractical, unengaging, and ineffective. We therefore investigated both healthcare providers’ and smokers’ preferences for features of future smoking cessation apps.
Objective:
We therefore investigated what Chinese smokers and providers want from a smartphone app for smoking cessation.
Methods:
Chinese smokers who own smartphones (N=357) and Chinese healthcare providers (N=224) who specialize in nicotine and tobacco use treatment responded to a survey collecting data on their socio-demographic characteristics and opinions on the importance of 20 smoking cessation app design features studied in previous US research.
Results:
Chinese healthcare providers expressed strong support of smoking cessation apps on a number of attitude indicators (range: 68.3% to 91.11%). They rated nearly all (18 of 20) features as very/extremely important (range: 52.2% to 83.4%), and rated nearly all features (17 of 20) as more important than the smokers did (all ps<.05). More than 60% of smokers rated the following four features as very/extremely important: allow sharing the process of smoking cessation with family members and friends (67.7%), helping smokers track their progress (such as amount of smoking per day) (66.8%), helping with the side effects of medications and nicotine withdrawal symptoms (63.0%), and adapting to ongoing needs and interests of smokers (60.8%). Contrary to a similar study of US smokers and healthcare providers, Chinese smokers and providers rated reputation and ability to communicate with family members and friends as important features whereas Chinese smokers rated privacy and security as less important.
Conclusions:
The design of future smoking cessation and health behavior change apps should consider perspectives of both providers and smokers as well as the role of culture.
Citation
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