Previously submitted to: JMIR Human Factors (no longer under consideration since Dec 28, 2021)
Date Submitted: Oct 6, 2019
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Usability of a Mobile Health Application (“app”) in Older HIV-Infected Patients: An Emerging Tool for Care, Education, and Prevention: Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Information and communication technologies are key to improving health and ensuring a quality, modern, and sustainable health system. They could prove particularly useful in the care of patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and HIV infection. It could also play a role in the prevention of comorbid conditions
Objective:
To determine the usefulness of an app designed specifically for HIV-infected patients aged 60 years or older by evaluating its usability. To assess changes in patient satisfaction with the app, adherence to treatment, and quality of health care in HIV-infected patients who use the app
Methods:
Randomized clinical trial, including 2 groups: 1) an experimental group comprising patients using the app + routine medical care and 2) a control group. The usability of the app and patient satisfaction were evaluated in the app group at weeks 24 and 48. Quality of life, adherence to treatment, and clinical parameters were compared in both groups at 48 weeks
Results:
The study population comprised 100 patients (50 per group). Men accounted for 73%, median age was 65 (IQR, 63-69) years, 46% were men who have sex with men, and the median time with HIV infection was 21 (IQR 16-25) years. We found that 52.2% and 73.8% of patients in the app group used the app at weeks 24 and 48. Patients visited the app on a mean of 23.7 (±2.84) days over the 48 weeks. The total number of sessions was 6,177, and the mean session time was 6 minutes and 51 (±34.72) seconds.The most visualized screens were health counseling and medical records (laboratory results) (24.8% and 22.2%, respectively). Patients aged 60 to 65 years were the age group that most actively used the app compared with those aged over 65 years (P=.029). At week 48, 85.2% of patients thought that the app was useful, and 91.4% would recommend the app to friends or relatives. The app was well valued by participants (4.79 [±0.21] out of 5.00), and 64.6% thought that the app improved their health care. The number of face-to-face visits to the HIV unit during the study was 4.29 (±1.43) for the app group and 5.33 (±1.72) for the control group (P=.03). There were no significant differences in patient quality of life, adherence, or inter- and intragroup clinical parameters.
Conclusions:
Our study shows the low usability of the app in HIV-infected patients, mainly among those aged over 65 years. Patients reported that the main use for the app was to receive health counseling and medical data (laboratory results). It is therefore necessary to promote knowledge of the app and motivate patients in this age group to use it.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.