JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Many eHealth interventions fail to meet the needs of people with low health literacy (LHL). This includes medication adherence interventions that fail to engage asthma patients with LHL in adopting the practice of daily medication intake. This results in poor eHealth adoption, low medication adherence and consequently a health inequity across populations. One reason of this failure relates to the generic approach used to develop these interventions, without addressing the needs, preferences, and capabilities of different groups. Therefore, targeting the intervention to asthma patients with LHL could overcome these drawbacks. eHealth is a promising direction involving technology in the self-management of healthcare which could address the needs, preferences, and capabilities of LHL asthma patients. Based on a case-study to increase asthma medication adherence by eHealth, this paper presents a participatory design approach for targeting eHealth-based interventions to people with LHL. In this study we use methods from design thinking that could be used to engage with people with LHL in the design of appropriate interventions. With these methods we aim to provide insight into their needs, skills, and preferences regarding medication adherence and identify design opportunities and requirements. We involved patients (n=5) and stakeholders, such as nurses and design- and literacy experts (n=14) throughout the participatory design process. The approach consisted of the following stages: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. It identifies eHealth design opportunities and requirements and serves as starting point for professionals developing LHL-friendly eHealth interventions for and with patients with LHL.