Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Nov 20, 2025
Date Accepted: Aug 24, 2026
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Barriers and facilitators associated with delivery to, and engagement with, a digital intervention for the self-management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): A real-world qualitative study across two clinical settings
ABSTRACT
Background:
Adherence to self-management plans leads to improved health outcomes among COPD patients. This study investigated an existing digital health intervention, myCOPD, available via the NHS to support self-management. This is the first study that combines the analysis of patient and professional perspectives regarding the delivery and engagement of a digital self-management intervention for COPD.
Objective:
The aim was to develop an understanding of perceived barriers to and facilitators of delivery and engagement of myCOPD.
Methods:
This study was conducted across two clinical settings: community pulmonary rehabilitation and hospital discharge. Participants completed qualitative semi-structured interviews. A reflexive approach to abductive thematic analysis was adopted using NVivo 14 for initial coding and the development of themes.
Results:
This study suggests that patient characteristics (multimorbidity, perceived digital ability, and socioeconomic status) potentially influence engagement. The study associated healthcare settings with passive and proactive approaches to delivering myCOPD. Healthcare settings and styles of delivery, in turn, have the potential to influence types of engagement among patients via single-aspect and multifaceted engagement. Descriptions of these two types of engagement were associated with two types of benefits (targeted behaviour change and wider lifestyle adjustments). These factors seemingly affect perceptions of barriers to and facilitators of engagement with myCOPD.
Conclusions:
This study suggests that myCOPD can provide a range of benefits that meet recommendations of the care pathway for COPD patients. The consideration of patient characteristics may improve engagement with, and evaluation of, myCOPD, particularly for those negotiating multimorbidity. The intervention content was consistent at both sites, and the demographic characteristics were ostensibly similar; consequently, the healthcare setting and delivery site are highlighted as important factors for facilitating engagement. Further integration and sustained engagement may develop from considering how and when specific frontline teams are most able to support delivery and engagement and if any additional resources are needed. Clinical Trial: N/A
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.