JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The Care Companion is a theory-based online intervention, co-produced to promote informal carers’ coping and resilience. It provides personalised access to information and resources that are responsive to individuals’ caring needs and responsibilities, and thereby aims to reduce the burdens associated with caregiving roles and the impact these have on carers’ well-being.

Objective:

User acceptance testing was undertaken to investigate the value and usability of the Care Companion. Key objectives were to explore 1) how its value was perceived by potential and actual users; 2) the barriers and facilitators to its uptake and use; 3) and gather suggestions to inform plans for an area-wide implementation.

Methods:

A qualitative descriptive study was conducted using focus groups, observations and semi-structured interviews. Within the first phase, semi-structured interviews were undertaken whilst carers familiarised themselves with the Care Companion and we observed how they navigated the website. In the second phase, focus group discussions were undertaken with participants trialling the Care Companion for two-week periods, followed by semi-structured interviews which explored their experiences of using the platform. Thematic analysis was applied to the data and a coding framework was developed iteratively with each phase of work informing the subsequent phases of data collection and analysis.

Results:

From the synthesis of the data analysis, the key themes that emerged related to: the value and usefulness of the Care Companion; its appearance and ease of use; the profile set-up and logging-in process; the safety and confidentiality of personal information; barriers to use and uptake, and suggestions for overcoming them; and suggestions for improving the Care Companion. Overall, participants perceived it to be a valuable and useful tool to support their caregiving activities. Themes that had been identified during the previous co-production phase of the Care Companion were validated, including the need for resources aimed specifically at carers (instead of care recipients); the importance of personalised information; and the value of having a journal. In addition, issues that had not previously been identified included the importance of providing transparency about security and data usage; minimising barriers to initial registration; offering demonstrations to support a wider uptake by people with low technological literacy; and the need to develop a culturally sensitive approach that reflects the diversity of the target population.

Conclusions:

The findings from this study demonstrate the importance of undertaking detailed user acceptance testing when developing an intervention for a diverse population, such as caregivers of older people. They have informed the further refinement of the Care Companion, as well as the strategy for its full implementation. This will be evaluated in future research.