JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Different strategies encompassed within mHealth have shown themselves to be effective for maintaining good health or controlling certain diseases. However, there is usually a very high rate of abandonment of health applications. Thus, it seems obvious that there is a need for involving the end users (whether they are health professionals, patients or both) in their design process as from the early stages to enable their needs and characteristics to be identified. In this sense, it is common knowledge that focusing on the user permits the consideration of valuable details aimed at making the correct fits between the patient, the technology, and the organization of attention.

Objective:

To propose a methodology, based on the review of previous successful user experiences in setting up health applications by using qualitative techniques (Focus Groups and Discussion Groups), that includes the participation of information technology and health professionals, and the patients themselves.

Methods:

An integrative review was made of studies in which a qualitative methodology was employed, Focus and/or Discussion Groups, for the design and development of Health Apps, consulting diverse databases (PubMed, Scopus and Proquest) with the following search strategy: “mHealth AND Apps AND Focus Group OR Discussion Group”. 44 papers were finally included in the review.

Results:

A proposal structured in 4 sessions of a variable duration was made in which information technology and health professionals and patients have to take part: Composing, Preparing and Organizing Contents (Session 1), Testing Structure and Usability (Session 2), Does the app fit the needs of end users? (Session 3) and Last Testing. Keep on Improving (Session 4). Throughout the sessions, it is proposed to study aspects like previous user experiences in mHealth, the barriers to the adoption of mHealth, interface contents, management and navigability, usability, perceived quality, security and privacy, the capacity to self-manage the disease with the app, ergonomy, glanceability, etc., and specific tools that have been seen to be useful in previous research for measuring these aspects are presented.

Conclusions:

These work sessions would be based on predominantly qualitative methodologies although, as they evolve, validated questionnaires permitting the assessment of the objectivity of certain technical aspects could be incorporated. With this proposal, a project centered on the end user could be effected, sparking, and responding to, their needs. However, this requires a validation that will be made via their implementation in development of Health Apps, with the subsequent measurement of results in terms of adherence and of an improvement in the clinical variables of the end users.