German mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (G-MAUQ): Translation and Validation Study

Abstract

Background: The use of mobile health applications is increasingly common among the general public. More recently, healthcare systems incorporate such tools in their service workflows, be it as guidance to the most appropriate care setting or as prescription digital therapeutics. With such apps percolating into the classic healthcare sector, the necessity of sound and standardized evaluation grows. The mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) provides a novel and custom-tailored psychometrically validated instrument to capture users’ perception of the usefulness and usability of an mHealth application. So far, this questionnaire is only available in English, Malay and Chinese.Objective: The aim of this study was to translate and validate a German version of the MAUQ (G-MAUQ). Further, we developed a short scale with 6 items (G-MAUQ-S) in German. Methods: We used the Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretest and Documentation (TRAPD) method to translate the MAUQ. Subsequently, we assessed content validity with 15 expert ratings and face validity with 15 German speaking mHealth users. To further validate the questionnaire, we used data from 148 participants of an RCT examining symptom checkers in the Emergency Department to assess convergent validity by correlating the G-MAUQ with the German version of the System Usability Scale and discriminant validity by correlating the G-MAUQ with other unrelated questionnaires. Lastly, we developed a short version by assessing item discrimination, factor loadings, correlation with the full scale and construct validity.Results: All but one item showed sufficient content validity with item-level content validity index values between CVI-I = 0.8 and 1.0. Face validity was excellent with item-level face validity index values ranging from FVI-I = 0.87 to 1. Convergent validity was sufficient with r = 0.769, and discriminant validity was sufficient with values between r = -0.014 and r = 0.220. An internal consistency of Cronbach’s α = 0.93 demonstrated high reliability. The short scale showed sufficient convergent validity (r = 0.762) and discriminant validity (r between –0.012 and 0.201). Conclusions: A validated and reliable G-MAUQ can be used by researchers and practitioners to assess the usability of mHealth interventions. We also provide the German mHealth App Usability Questionnaire – Short Version (G-MAUQ-S) with six questions to quickly assess the usability of an intervention.

German Version of the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire and Derived Short Questionnaires for Usability and Perceived Usefulness in Health Care Assessment in Telehealth and Digital Therapeutics: Instrument Validation Study (Preprint)

“…For the brief version, reliability was still acceptable with Cronbach ś alpha of 0.72. Different authors in this field offered German translations of the mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) (25,26,27). Moorthy et al validated their translated MAUQ in a specific sample of 133 cancer patients but (presumably due to the small sample size) the factor structure of the translated questionnaire was not further investigated (25).…”

“…Moorthy et al validated their translated MAUQ in a specific sample of 133 cancer patients but (presumably due to the small sample size) the factor structure of the translated questionnaire was not further investigated (25). Kopka et al provided a German version and a German short version in a sample of 148 patients using a symptom checker app in an emergency department in a randomized controlled trial (26). They showed that the original factor structure did not fit the data well, but no further investigation of the factor structure was conducted.…”