Development and usability evaluation of the mHealth Tool for Lung Cancer (mHealth TLC): a virtual world health game for lung cancer patients.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Brown-Johnson CG
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4451946 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Development and usability evaluation of the mHealth Tool for Lung Cancer (mHealth TLC): a virtual world health game for lung cancer patients.
Brown-Johnson Cati G CG Berrean Beth B Cataldo Janine K JK
Patient education and counseling 20150103 4
<h4>Objective</h4>To test the feasibility and usability of mHealth TLC, an interactive, immersive 3-dimensional iPad health game that coaches lung cancer patients toward assertive communication strategies during first-person virtual clinics visits.<h4>Method</h4>We observed players and conducted semi-structured interviews. Research questions focused on scenario believability, the impact of technical issues, transparency of game goals, and potential of mHealth TLC to decrease lung cancer stigma ( ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:BackgroundUsability is a key factor affecting the acceptance of mobile health applications (mHealth apps) for elderly individuals, but traditional usability evaluation methods may not be suitable for use in this population because of aging barriers. The objectives of this study were to identify, explore, and summarize the current state of the literature on the usability evaluation of mHealth apps for older adults and to incorporate these methods into the appropriate evaluation stage.MethodsElectronic searches were conducted in 10 databases. Inclusion criteria were articles focused on the usability evaluation of mHealth apps designed for older adults. The included studies were classified according to the mHealth app usability evaluation framework, and the suitability of evaluation methods for use among the elderly was analyzed.ResultsNinety-six articles met the inclusion criteria. Research activity increased steeply after 2013 (n = 92). Satisfaction (n = 74) and learnability (n = 60) were the most frequently evaluated critical measures, while memorability (n = 13) was the least evaluated. The ratios of satisfaction, learnability, operability, and understandability measures were significantly related to the different stages of evaluation (P < 0.05). The methods used for usability evaluation were questionnaire (n = 68), interview (n = 36), concurrent thinking aloud (n = 25), performance metrics (n = 25), behavioral observation log (n = 14), screen recording (n = 3), eye tracking (n = 1), retrospective thinking aloud (n = 1), and feedback log (n = 1). Thirty-two studies developed their own evaluation tool to assess unique design features for elderly individuals.ConclusionIn the past five years, the number of studies in the field of usability evaluation of mHealth apps for the elderly has increased rapidly. The mHealth apps are often used as an auxiliary means of self-management to help the elderly manage their wellness and disease. According to the three stages of the mHealth app usability evaluation framework, the critical measures and evaluation methods are inconsistent. Future research should focus on selecting specific critical measures relevant to aging characteristics and adapting usability evaluation methods to elderly individuals by improving traditional tools, introducing automated evaluation tools and optimizing evaluation processes.
| S-EPMC9717549 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundMany essential walking activities in daily life, such as crossing a street, are challenging to practice in conventional therapeutic settings. Virtual environments (VEs) delivered through a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) would allow training such activities in a safe and attractive environment. Furthermore, the game-like character and high degree of immersion in these applications might help maintain or increase children's motivation and active participation during the rehabilitation process.ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the usability, user experience, and acceptability of an immersive VE experienced through a VR HMD to train everyday life walking activities in pediatric neurorehabilitation.MethodsIn a cross-sectional study, 21 youths (median age 12.1 years; range 6.8-17.7 years) with a neuromotor impairment undergoing inpatient or outpatient neurorehabilitation tested a VE experienced through the VR HMD Oculus Quest. The participants, accompanied by their physiotherapists, moved freely around a 4.4 by 10-meter VE, displaying a magical forest and featuring various gamified everyday activities in different game designs. Using their hands, represented in the VE, the participants could interact with the virtual objects placed throughout the VE and trigger visual and auditory feedback. Symptoms of cybersickness were checked, and usability, user experience, and acceptability were evaluated using customized questionnaires with a visual analog scale for youths and a 5-point Likert scale for their therapists.ResultsNone of the participants reported any signs of cybersickness after 20 minutes of VR HMD exposure time. They rated comfort (median 10/10) and movement ability (median 10/10) with the VR HMD as high. The VE was perceived as being really there by the majority (median 8/10), and the participants had a strong feeling of spatial presence in the VE (median 9.5/10). They enjoyed exploring the virtual world (median 10/10) and liked this new therapy approach (median 10/10). Therapists' acceptance of the VR HMD was high (4/5). There were 5 patients that needed more support than usual, mainly for supervision, when moving around with the VR HMD. Otherwise, therapists felt that the VR HMD hardly affected their patients' movement behavior (median 4.75/5), whereas it seemed to increase their level of therapy engagement (median 4/5) compared to conventional physiotherapy sessions.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the usability of an immersive VE delivered through a VR HMD to engage youths in the training of everyday walking activities. The participants' and therapists' positive ratings on user experience and acceptance further support the promising application of this technology as a future therapeutic tool in pediatric neurorehabilitation.
| S-EPMC9335180 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundReduced or absence of melanin poses physical, social, and psychological challenges to individuals with albinism. Mobile health (mHealth) applications have the potential to improve the accessibility of information and services while reducing time and costs. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a mHealth application for self-management of albinism.MethodsThis applied study was conducted in two stages (development and evaluation) in 2022. Initially, the functional requirements were determined, and the conceptual model of the application was then developed using Microsoft Visio 2021. In the second phase, the application was evaluated using the Mobile Application Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) involving patients with albinism to reflect their views on the usability of the application.ResultsThe key capabilities of the application included: reminders, alerts, educational content, useful links, storage and exchange of images of skin lesions, specialist finder, and notifications for albinism-relevant events. Twenty-one users with albinism participated in the usability testing of the application. The users were predominantly satisfied with the application (5.53 ± 1.10; Max: 7.00).ConclusionsThe findings of this study suggest that the developed mobile application could assist individuals with albinism to effectively manage their condition by considering the users' requirements and services that the application should deliver.
| S-EPMC10262590 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundMobile health (mHealth) is an emerging field of scientific interest worldwide. Potential benefits include increased patient engagement, improved clinical outcomes, and reduced health care costs. However, mHealth is often studied in projects or trials, and structural implantation in clinical practice is less common.ObjectiveThe purpose of this paper is to outline the design of the Box and its implementation and use in an outpatient clinic setting. The impact on logistical outcomes and patient and provider satisfaction is discussed.MethodsIn 2016, an mHealth care track including smartphone-compatible devices, named the Box, was implemented in the cardiology department of a tertiary medical center in the Netherlands. Patients with myocardial infarction, rhythm disorders, cardiac surgery, heart failure, and congenital heart disease received devices to measure daily weight, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and oxygen saturation. In addition, professional and patient user comments on the experience with the care track were obtained via structured interviews.ResultsFrom 2016 to April 2020, a total of 1140 patients were connected to the mHealth care track. On average, a Box cost €350 (US $375), not including extra staff costs. The median patient age was 60.8 (IQR 52.9-69.3) years, and 73.59% (839/1140) were male. A median of 260 (IQR 105-641) measurements was taken on a median of 189 (IQR 98-372) days. Patients praised the ease of use of the devices and felt more involved with their illness and care. Professionals reported more productive outpatient consultations as well as improved insight into health parameters such as blood pressure and weight. A feedback loop from the hospital to patient to focus on measurements was commented as an important improvement by both patients and professionals.ConclusionsIn this study, the design and implementation of an mHealth care track for outpatient follow-up of patients with various cardiovascular diseases is described. Data from these 4 years indicate that mHealth is feasible to incorporate in outpatient management and is generally well-accepted by patients and providers. Limitations include the need for manual measurement data checks and the risk of data overload. Moreover, the tertiary care setting in which the Box was introduced may limit the external validity of logistical and financial end points to other medical centers. More evidence is needed to show the effects of mHealth on clinical outcomes and on cost-effectiveness.
| S-EPMC8726018 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundDiabetes is one of the leading causes of death in developing countries. Existing mobile health (mHealth) app design guidelines lack a description of the support of continuous self-monitoring of health status, behavior change to improve and adopt a healthy lifestyle, and communication with health educators and health care professionals in case of any need.ObjectiveThis paper presents the development of a specialized set of heuristics called heuristic evaluation for mHealth apps (HE4EH) as an all-in-one tool and its applicability by performing a heuristic evaluation of an mHealth app.MethodsAn extensive review of heuristics and checklists was used to develop the HE4EH. The HE4EH was evaluated by domain experts for heuristics, checklist items, severity ratings, and overall satisfaction. The OneTouch app, which helps individuals with diabetes manage their blood glucose levels, was evaluated using HE4EH to identify usability problems that need to be fixed in the app.ResultsThe expert evaluation of HE4EH revealed that the heuristics were important, relevant, and clear. The checklist items across the heuristics were clear, relevant, and acceptably grouped. In terms of evaluating the OneTouch app using the HE4EH, the most frequently violated heuristics included Content, Visibility, Match, and Self-monitoring. Most of the usability problems found were minor. The system usability scale score indicated that the OneTouch app is marginally acceptable.ConclusionsThis heuristic evaluation using the OneTouch app shows that the HE4EH can play a vital role for designers, researchers, and practitioners to use HE4EH heuristics and checklist items as a tool to design a new or evaluate and improve an existing mHealth app.
| S-EPMC7657716 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThe experience of infertility and its treatment engenders considerable stress and is often described as an emotional rollercoaster. A mobile health (mHealth) app may be a novel solution to address the psychoeducational and psychosocial support needs of fertility patients because of its potential to reduce stress and increase patient empowerment. There are a few fertility-related apps that provide information and support to both men and women undergoing fertility treatment; however, none have documented their development and evaluation process.ObjectiveThis study aims to describe the development and evaluation process of a bilingual mHealth app, Infotility, designed to meet the psychoeducational and psychosocial support needs of men and women undergoing fertility treatment.MethodsTo develop the Infotility app, we adhered to the Medical Research Council guidelines for the development and evaluation of complex interventions. First, we conducted literature reviews and needs assessment surveys of fertility patients and health care providers who informed the content and design of the app. Second, we tested the intervention with a small group of end users who provided feedback on the design and appropriateness of the app's content. Third, we evaluated the uptake and usability of the app using a pre-post study design. Finally, we updated the app's content based on participants' feedback and searched for partners to disseminate the app to the broader public.ResultsThis study is the first to describe the development and evaluation process of an mHealth app for men and women undergoing fertility treatment. The app met its goal in providing fertility patients with a clinician-approved, portable resource for reliable information about medical and psychosocial aspects of infertility and its treatments and a confidential peer support forum monitored by trained peer supporters. Participants rated the engagement, functionality, information, and esthetics of the app positively, with an overall app quality mean score of 3.75 (SD 0.53) and a star rating of 3.43 (SD 0.75), with a total possible score and star rating of 5.00.ConclusionsBy documenting the systematic development and evaluation of the mHealth app for men and women undergoing fertility treatment, this paper can facilitate the replication of the study intervention and the development of similar mHealth apps.
| S-EPMC8548975 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundMany researchers have been evaluating how digital media may impact the emotional and perspective taking aspects of empathy in both clinical and nonclinical settings. Despite the growing interest in using virtual reality (VR) and VR games to motivate empathy, few studies have focused on empathy for people who live with chronic pain.ObjectiveChronic pain affects, by conservative estimates, 1 in 5 people in industrialized countries. Despite this prevalence, public awareness of chronic pain was remarkably low until the recent opioid crisis; as a result, stigma remains a problem frequently faced by people who live with this condition. To address this, the VR game AS IF was developed to increase nonpatients' empathy toward the growing number of people who live with long-term chronic pain. On the basis of our prior work, we overhauled our approach, designed and built a VR prototype and evaluated it, and offered design suggestions for future research.MethodsWe introduced the design features of the VR game AS IF and described the study we devised to evaluate its effectiveness. We adopted a mixed methods approach and compared the empathy-related outcomes in both pre- and posttesting. A total of 19 participants were recruited.ResultsThe findings of this study suggest that the VR game was effective in improving implicit and explicit empathy as well as its emotional and perspective taking aspects. More specifically, for the Empathy Scale, the total pretest scores (mean 47.33, SD 4.24) and posttest scores (mean 59.22, SD 4.33) did not reach statistical significance (P=.08). However, we did find differences in the subscales. The kindness subscale showed a statistically significant increase in the posttest score (mean 15.61, SD 2.85) compared with the pretest score (mean 17.06, SD 2.65;P=.001). For the Willingness to Help Scale, a significant increase was observed from a t test analysis (P<.001) of scores before (mean 7.17, SD 2.28) and after (mean 8.33, SD 2.03) the gameplay. The effect size for this analysis was large (d=-1.063).ConclusionsThe contributions of this research are as follows: AS IF provides a promising approach for designing VR games to motivate people's empathy toward patients with chronic pain, the study evaluates the potential effectiveness of such a VR approach, and the general design suggestions devised from this study could shed light on future VR game systems.
| S-EPMC7442937 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND:After a mobile health (mHealth) app is created, an important step is to evaluate the usability of the app before it is released to the public. There are multiple ways of conducting a usability study, one of which is collecting target users' feedback with a usability questionnaire. Different groups have used different questionnaires for mHealth app usability evaluation: The commonly used questionnaires are the System Usability Scale (SUS) and Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ). However, the SUS and PSSUQ were not designed to evaluate the usability of mHealth apps. Self-written questionnaires are also commonly used for evaluation of mHealth app usability but they have not been validated. OBJECTIVE:The goal of this project was to develop and validate a new mHealth app usability questionnaire. METHODS:An mHealth app usability questionnaire (MAUQ) was designed by the research team based on a number of existing questionnaires used in previous mobile app usability studies, especially the well-validated questionnaires. MAUQ, SUS, and PSSUQ were then used to evaluate the usability of two mHealth apps: an interactive mHealth app and a standalone mHealth app. The reliability and validity of the new questionnaire were evaluated. The correlation coefficients among MAUQ, SUS, and PSSUQ were calculated. RESULTS:In this study, 128 study participants provided responses to the questionnaire statements. Psychometric analysis indicated that the MAUQ has three subscales and their internal consistency reliability is high. The relevant subscales correlated well with the subscales of the PSSUQ. The overall scale also strongly correlated with the PSSUQ and SUS. Four versions of the MAUQ were created in relation to the type of app (interactive or standalone) and target user of the app (patient or provider). A website has been created to make it convenient for mHealth app developers to use this new questionnaire in order to assess the usability of their mHealth apps. CONCLUSIONS:The newly created mHealth app usability questionnaire-MAUQ-has the reliability and validity required to assess mHealth app usability.
| S-EPMC6482399 | biostudies-other
Project description:BackgroundPhysical inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle are common among people with heart failure (HF), which may lead to worse prognosis. On an already existing mHealth platform, we developed a novel tool called the Activity coach, aimed at increasing physical activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usability of the Activity coach and assess feasibility of outcome measures for a future efficacy trial.MethodsA mixed-methods design was used to collect data. People with a HF diagnosis were recruited to use the Activity coach for four weeks. The Activity coach educates the user about physical activity, provides means of registering daily physical activity and helps the user to set goals for the next week. The usability was assessed by analysing system user logs for adherence, reported technical issues and by interviews about user experiences. Outcome measures assessed for feasibility were objective physical activity as measured by an accelerometer, and subjective goal attainment. Progression criteria for the usability assessment and for the proposed outcomes, were described prospectively.ResultsTen people with HF were recruited, aged 56 to 78 with median age 72. Data from nine of the ten study participants were included in the analyses. Usability: The Activity coach was used 61% of the time and during the first week two study participants called to seek technical support. The Activity coach was found to be intuitive and easy to use by all study participants. An increased motivation to be more physically active was reported by six of the nine study participants. However, in spite of feeling motivated, four reported that their habits or behaviours had not been affected by the Activity coach.FeasibilityData was successfully stored in the deployed hardware as intended and the accelerometers were used enough, for the data to be analysable. One finding was that the subjective outcome goal attainment, was challenging to collect. A proposed mitigator for this is to use pre-defined goals in future studies, as opposed to having the study participants be completely free to formulate the goals themselves.ConclusionsIt was confirmed that the Activity coach was easy to use. Furthermore, it might stimulate increased physical activity in a population of people with HF, who are physically inactive. The outcomes investigated seem feasible to include in a future efficacy trial.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05235763. Date of first registration: 11/02/2022.
| S-EPMC10860324 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundAttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects between 4% and 8% of children worldwide. The treatment of choice is multimodal treatment. Multimodal interventions for ADHD may be improved by incorporating new treatments, such as treatment via serious video games. The Secret Trail of Moon (TSTM) is a virtual reality serious video game that was designed for cognitive training related to core ADHD symptoms and executive dysfunction.ObjectiveWe aimed to describe the development and usability of TSTM.MethodsThe usability study included 37 children and adolescents who tested TSTM during the early usability stage (preinclusion) of a randomized controlled clinical trial for testing the effectiveness of TSTM. Chi-square tests were performed to compare patients with ADHD (ADHD combined subtype vs inattentive subtype) and to compare frequent and infrequent video game players in the second study. We used SPSS version 20 for Macintosh (IBM Corporation).ResultsA total of 31/37 (86%) and 30/37 (83%) of participants liked playing TSTM and wanted to continue playing TSTM, respectively. Further, 5/37 (14%) of participants reported that they experienced either perceived dizziness or virtual reality motion sickness. We found no statistically significant differences after comparing the ADHD combined subtype to the inattentive subtype and frequent video game players to infrequent video game players.ConclusionsSerious video games, such as TSTM, may complement the current multimodal approach for treating ADHD.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04355065; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04355065.
| S-EPMC8444038 | biostudies-literature