Young People’s Preferences for an Asthma Self-Management App Highlight Psychological Needs: A Participatory Study

Abstract

BackgroundAlthough the prevalence of mental illness among young people with asthma is known to be twice the rate of the wider population, none of the asthma apps reported have acknowledged or attempted to include psychological support features. This is perhaps because user involvement in the development of asthma apps has been scarce. User involvement, facilitated by participatory design methods, can begin to address these issues while contributing insights to our understanding of the psychological experience associated with asthma and how technology might improve quality of life.ObjectiveThe goal of this participatory user research study was to explore the experience, needs, and ideas of young people with asthma while allowing them to define requirements for an asthma app that would be engaging and effective at improving their well-being.MethodsYoung people aged 15-24 years with doctor-diagnosed asthma were invited to participate in a participatory workshop and to complete a workbook designed to elicit their thoughts and ideas about living with asthma, technology use, and the design of an app. Participants generated a number of artifacts (including collages, concept maps, and paper prototypes) designed to reify their ideas, tacit knowledge, and experience.ResultsA total of 20 participants (mean age 17.8 years; 60%, 12/20 female) representing a range from inadequately to well-controlled asthma completed a workbook and 13 of these also took part in a workshop (four workshops were held in total), resulting in 102 participant-generated artifacts. Theoretical thematic analysis resulted in a set of personal needs, feature ideas, and app characteristics considered relevant by young people for an asthma support app. The data revealed that psychological factors such as anxiety, and impediments to autonomy, competence, and relatedness (as consistent with self-determination theory [SDT]), were considered major influences on quality of life by young people with asthma. Furthermore, the incorporation of features pertaining to psychological experience was particularly valued by participants.ConclusionsIn addition to practical features for asthma management, an app for young people with asthma should include support for the mental health factors associated with lived experience (ie, anxiety, lack of autonomy, and social disconnectedness). We show how support for these factors can be translated into design features of an app for asthma. In addition to informing the development of asthma-support technologies for young people, these findings could have implications for technologies designed to support people with chronic illness more generally.

Enhancing Asthma Patients' Self-Management through Smartphone-Based Application: Design, Usability Evaluation, and Educational Intervention

“…Other studies also showed similar results. 16,46 In a study by Geryk et al (2016), the parents of children with asthma reported "recording data, physician communication, and sharing data via e-mail" and physicians reported "reminder for physician appointment" as the most important functionalities of the applications. 47 But because of the difference in targeting groups, asynchronous communication via e-mail and lack of sufficient time for physicians to connect to the internet, 48,49 this functionality was different in our study than in previous studies.…”

Mobile Asthma Action Plan for Adolescent with Asthma

“…The first article stated that theoretical thematic analysis resulted in a set of personal needs, feature ideas, and app of the relevant features by young people for an asthma support app. The data mentioned that psychological factors such as anxiety, and impediments to autonomy, competence, and relatedness (as consistent with self-determination theory [SDT]), were considered major influences on quality of life by young people with asthma (Peters et al, 2017).…”

Evolving the Design of a Mobile Application to Support Transition to Tertiary Education

“…However, two factors should be considered when developing software applications to support first year university students. First, end-user involvement in the design process is important to the success of the software (Cho et al, 2014;Dunton et al, 2014); Second, there is only a weak connection between theories and how they should be implemented in terms of software features (Peters et al, 2017). Therefore, a user-centered design (UCD) approach was adopted in this study.…”