Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Oct 7, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 7, 2024 - Dec 2, 2024
Date Accepted: Feb 20, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Usability Study of a Concussion Rehabilitation App to Assess User Experience and Satisfaction
ABSTRACT
Background:
Evidence-based guidelines support the use of structured exercise to facilitate recovery. However, despite the growing number of mobile health (mHealth) applications aimed at managing concussion, few focus on delivering exercise rehabilitation protocols. A mobile app was developed to provide personalized rehabilitation programs based on evidence-based exercise principles designed to cater to individuals recovering from concussions.
Objective:
This study evaluated the usability and user experience of a mobile app in delivering an evidence-based rehabilitation program to individuals recovering from concussions.
Methods:
A 2-week prospective single-arm pilot study was conducted on 33 adult participants diagnosed with a concussion. Participants engaged in home-based rehabilitation exercises through a mobile app. Usability was assessed using a combination of the mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) and six custom app-specific questions targeting confidence in recommendations, flow of exercises, clarity of voice commands, and usability of the exercise report feature.
Results:
The study included 23 participants, the majority of whom were female (78%). Participants were between the ages of 26 and 38, and on average, were approximately three months post-concussion. Responses to both the MAUQ and additional app-specific questions were overwhelmingly positive. Seven MAUQ questions received 100% positive responses, with no single question receiving below 83% positive responses. Among the five additional app-specific questions, only a single unfavourable response was reported across all questions.
Conclusions:
The findings of this study indicate that the mobile app is a user-friendly platform for delivering evidence-based exercise rehabilitation to individuals recovering from concussions. Positive user feedback, particularly in the areas of recommendation confidence, ease of exercise flow, and clarity of voice commands, highlights the app’s potential to support concussion recovery. Moving forward, future iterations of the app will aim to improve time efficiency and streamline error recovery processes to further enhance the user experience.
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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.