JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Health information technologies (HIT) hold enormous promise for improving access to, and better quality, mental health care. However, despite rapid spread of such technologies in high-income countries, they have not yet been commonly adopted in low and middle-income countries. People living in these parts of the world are at risk of experiencing not only physical but also technological and social health inequalities. One possible solution is to utilise already available (and successfully implemented) HITs developed in other counties.

Objective:

Using participatory design methodologies with Colombian end users (young people, their supportive others, health professionals), this study aimed to: conduct co-design workshops to culturally adapt an online mental health clinic (MHeC) for young people; perform one-on-one user testing sessions to evaluate an alpha prototype of a Spanish version of the MHeC, and adapt it to the Colombian context; and, inform the development of a skeletal framework and alpha prototype for a Colombian version of the MHeC (MHeC-C).

Methods:

Utilisation of a research and development (R&D) cycle including four iterative phases: co-design workshops; knowledge translation; tailoring to language, culture and place (or context); rapid prototyping; and then, one-on-one user testing sessions.

Results:

Two co-design workshops were held with 18 users (young people n=7, health professionals n=11). A total of 10 participated in one-on-one user-testing sessions (young people n=5, supportive others n=2, health professionals n=3). 203 source documents were collected and 605 annotations were coded. A thematic analysis resulted in six main themes (i.e. opinions about the MHeC-C, Colombian context, functionality, content, user interface and technology platforms). Participants liked the idea of having a MHeC specially designed and adapted for Colombian young people and its five key elements were acceptable in this context (home page and triage system, self-report assessment, dashboard of results, booking and video visit system and personalized well-being plan). However, to be relevant in Colombia, participants stressed the need to develop some additional functionality (eg. phone network backup, chat, geolocation, and integration with electronic medical records, apps or e-tools) as well as adaptation of the self-report assessment. Importantly, the latter not only included language but also culture and context.

Conclusions:

The application of an iterative R&D cycle that also included processes for adaptation to Colombia (language, culture, context), resulted in the development of an evidence-based, language-appropriate, culturally-sensitive, context-adapted HIT that is relevant, applicable, engaging and usable in both the short- and longer-term. The resultant R&D cycle allowed for the adaptation of an already available HIT (i.e. MHeC) to the MHeC-C – a low-cost and scalable technology solution for low-to-middle income countries such as Colombia, which has the potential to provide young people with accessible, available, affordable and integrated mental health care at the right time.