Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Oct 30, 2018
Date Accepted: Mar 29, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Patients and providers as app developers: co-creating mobile texting apps to support behavioral health
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mobile technologies hold potential for improving quality of care and engagement of patients. However, there are considerable challenges in ensuring technologies are relevant, useful, and engaging. While end-users such as patients and providers are increasingly involved in the design of health technologies, there are limited examples of these stakeholders directly creating these technologies for their own use.
Objective:
We pilot the feasibility and acceptability of patients and providers directly creating personal mobile texting apps to support behavioral health treatment.
Methods:
We conducted a pilot study of a participatory technology development approach, enrolling 28 patients and 4 providers, in an intensive outpatient treatment program for individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Results:
Participants created a total of 360 unique mobile text interactions, with 1787 messages sent during an 11-month pilot period. Eleven of 12 (92%) participants completing the usability survey agreed that they could effectively develop messaging apps. Nine out of 10 (90%) patients agreed that the messages were relevant to them and their recovery and 8/10 (80%) agreed that the messages were effective at helping complete treatment plans.
Conclusions:
It is feasible for patients and providers to directly create mobile texting apps for their own use in real-time. Enabling patients to directly create apps for their own use may hold potential for increasing the relevance, sustainability and effectiveness of health technologies.
Citation
