JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Despite the worldwide growth in mHealth tools and the possible benefits for both patients and healthcare providers, their overall adoption levels by health professionals remain relatively low.

Objective:

In the present study, we aim (1) to investigate attitudes of healthcare providers and mHealth experts towards mHealth tools in the health context in general, and (2) to test the acceptability and feasibility of a specific mHealth tool, called TCApp, for patients with an Eating Disorder (ED) among patients and ED specialists.

Methods:

To examine this, we conducted an explorative qualitative study with 3 in-depth group discussions with several groups of stakeholders: the first focus group was conducted with 11 experts on mHealth from the Catalan Association of Health Entities and 10 healthcare professionals from the Spanish College of Doctors of Barcelona. The second focus group involved 9 patients with an ED who had used the TCApp during 12 weeks and the third one, involved 8 ED specialists who had monitored patients online.

Results:

The focus groups showed that healthcare providers and mHealth experts reported more often barriers and less facilitators for mHealth adoption, thereby indicating that mHealth techniques are difficult to obtain and use. Most barriers were attributed to external factors related to the human or organizational environment (i.e. lack of time due to workload, lack of direct interest at a legislative or political level, among others) rather than internal factors related to individual obstacles. The results of the mHealth intervention study indicated that the TCApp was considered as easy to use and useful, although patients and ED specialists monitoring them online reported different adoption problems, such as lack of personalization of the device, lack of motivational and interactive components or difficulties in complying with the study protocol.

Conclusions:

In general, this study shows that both health professionals and patients foresee difficulties that need to be solved before adoption and usage of mHealth techniques can be effectively used in the near future. Findings are in line with previous studies, suggesting that healthcare providers are quite resistant and conservative about integrating mHealth technologies in their daily practice, although they acknowledge their possible benefits and cost-effectiveness.