Background

As technology has advanced over the last decade, handheld Mobile Health (mHealth) applications have increased in popularity. Pregnancy is one area of mHealth that has rapidly expanded, however very few pregnancy apps are developed in collaboration with health professionals. This creates an environment where the pregnancy information women are accessing may be inaccurate or even dangerous. Additionally, there are relatively few medical apps devoted to prematurity or targeted to women at risk for premature birth. To address the gap in premature birth education, we assembled a multidisciplinary team, including health care professionals, and developed the Preemie Prep for Parents (P3) app.

Methods

Our team previously conducted 5 focus group meetings to assess the information needs of our target audience. Based on this information we developed a low fidelity P3 prototype. Our software development team transferred the low fidelity prototype into a high fidelity prototype which was hosted on Test Flight (a beta testing platform). We performed heuristic evaluation as well as user testing to improve the P3 app.

Results

User testing of the high fidelity P3 prototype was performed with 13 diverse participants. 6 participants were parents of currently admitted Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) babies and 7 participants were women who had been or were currently pregnant. The native language of participants included English, Spanish, and Hmong and their educational level varied between completing high school and graduate degree. Participants provided feedback on the content of the P3 app, as well as its organization and aesthetics. The feedback led to 83 iterations of the P3 app prior to its deployment. Overall, participants noted that the information was “informative” and “reliable”. They also noted that the P3 app provided control over the information they could view and when they viewed it, stating “I could see info on my time”. Overall, participants felt that the P3 app was a valuable tool for mothers in preterm labor and it would help them ask questions.

Conclusions

Development of a mHealth app provides unique challenges regarding content, reliability of information, organization, and aesthetics. Creation of the P3 app to address the educational needs of women at risk for premature birth required assembling a multidisciplinary team, which included target users, and implementing an iterative design process. The efficacy of this app in improving user knowledge and decreasing anxiety is currently being tested in a randomized controlled trial.

中文翻译：

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为住院早产的父母设计一款基于平板电脑的早产教育应用程序。

背景

在过去的十年中，随着技术的进步，手持移动健康（mHealth）应用程序的普及程度越来越高。怀孕是mHealth迅速发展的领域之一，但是与卫生专业人员合作开发的怀孕应用程序很少。这就创造了一个环境，在该环境中，女性正在访问的怀孕信息可能不准确甚至危险。此外，只有很少的医疗应用专门用于早产或针对有早产风险的女性。为了解决早产教育方面的空白，我们组建了一支包括医疗保健专业人员在内的多学科团队，并开发了Preemie Prep for Parents（P3）应用程序。

方法

我们的团队之前曾举行过5次焦点小组会议，以评估目标受众的信息需求。基于此信息，我们开发了低保真P3原型。我们的软件开发团队将低保真度原型转换为高保真度原型，该原型位于Test Flight（β测试平台）上。我们进行了启发式评估以及用户测试，以改进P3应用程序。

结果

高保真P3原型的用户测试是由13位不同的参与者进行的。6名参与者是目前接受新生儿重症监护室（NICU）婴儿的父母，7名参与者是已经或目前怀孕的妇女。参加者的母语包括英语，西班牙语和苗族语，其受教育程度在完成高中和研究生学位之间有所不同。参与者提供了有关P3应用程序的内容及其组织和美观的反馈。反馈导致P3应用在部署之前进行了83次迭代。总体而言，与会者指出，这些信息是“信息性的”和“可靠的”。他们还指出，P3应用程序可以控制他们可以查看的信息以及查看时的信息，并指出“我可以看到自己的时间信息”。总体而言，参与者认为P3应用程序对于母亲进行早产而言是一个有价值的工具，它将帮助他们提出问题。

结论

mHealth应用程序的开发在内容，信息可靠性，组织和美观方面提出了独特的挑战。创建P3应用程序以解决处于早产风险中的妇女的教育需求，需要组建一个包括目标用户在内的多学科团队，并实施迭代设计过程。该应用程序在改善用户知识和减少焦虑方面的功效目前正在一项随机对照试验中进行测试。