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Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study
BACKGROUND: Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is increasingly common and associated with serious and costly health consequences. Cessation of drinking can improve ALD morbidity and mortality; however, support for cessation is not routinely offered to those diagnosed with ALD, and continued drin...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
JMIR Publications
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10687677/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37966869 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/47404 |
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author | Park, Linda S Kornfield, Rachel Yezihalem, Mihret Quanbeck, Andrew Mellinger, Jessica German, Margarita |
author_facet | Park, Linda S Kornfield, Rachel Yezihalem, Mihret Quanbeck, Andrew Mellinger, Jessica German, Margarita |
author_sort | Park, Linda S |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is increasingly common and associated with serious and costly health consequences. Cessation of drinking can improve ALD morbidity and mortality; however, support for cessation is not routinely offered to those diagnosed with ALD, and continued drinking or resumption of drinking after diagnosis is common. Mobile health (mHealth) has the potential to offer convenient and scalable support for alcohol cessation to those diagnosed with ALD, but mHealth interventions for alcohol cessation have not been designed for or evaluated in a population with ALD. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to understand how individuals with ALD would perceive and use an mHealth tool for alcohol cessation and to gather their perspectives on potential refinements to the tool that would allow it to better meet their needs. METHODS: We interviewed 11 individuals who attended clinic visits related to their ALD to elicit their needs related to support for alcohol cessation and views on how mHealth could be applied. After completing initial interviews (pre), participants were provided with access to an mHealth app designed for alcohol cessation, which they used for 1 month. Afterward, they were interviewed again (post) to give feedback on their experiences, including aspects of the app that met their needs and potential refinements. We applied a mixed methods approach, including a qualitative analysis to identify major themes from the interview transcripts and descriptive analyses of use of the app over 1 month. RESULTS: First, we found that a diagnosis of ALD is perceived as a motivator to quit drinking but that patients had difficulty processing the overwhelming amount of information about ALD they received and finding resources for cessation of alcohol use. Second, we found that the app was perceived as usable and useful for supporting drinking recovery, with patients responding favorably to the self-tracking and motivational components of the app. Finally, patients identified areas in which the app could be adapted to meet the needs of patients with ALD, such as providing information on the medical implications of an ALD diagnosis and how to care for their liver as well as connecting individuals with ALD to one another via a peer-to-peer support forum. Rates of app use were high and sustained across the entire study, with participants using the app a little more than half the days during the study on average and with 100% (11/11) of participants logging in each week. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight the need for convenient access to resources for alcohol cessation after ALD diagnosis and support the potential of an mHealth approach to integrate recovery support into care for ALD. Our findings also highlight the ways the alcohol cessation app should be modified to address ALD-specific concerns. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10687677 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | JMIR Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106876772023-11-30 Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study Park, Linda S Kornfield, Rachel Yezihalem, Mihret Quanbeck, Andrew Mellinger, Jessica German, Margarita JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is increasingly common and associated with serious and costly health consequences. Cessation of drinking can improve ALD morbidity and mortality; however, support for cessation is not routinely offered to those diagnosed with ALD, and continued drinking or resumption of drinking after diagnosis is common. Mobile health (mHealth) has the potential to offer convenient and scalable support for alcohol cessation to those diagnosed with ALD, but mHealth interventions for alcohol cessation have not been designed for or evaluated in a population with ALD. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to understand how individuals with ALD would perceive and use an mHealth tool for alcohol cessation and to gather their perspectives on potential refinements to the tool that would allow it to better meet their needs. METHODS: We interviewed 11 individuals who attended clinic visits related to their ALD to elicit their needs related to support for alcohol cessation and views on how mHealth could be applied. After completing initial interviews (pre), participants were provided with access to an mHealth app designed for alcohol cessation, which they used for 1 month. Afterward, they were interviewed again (post) to give feedback on their experiences, including aspects of the app that met their needs and potential refinements. We applied a mixed methods approach, including a qualitative analysis to identify major themes from the interview transcripts and descriptive analyses of use of the app over 1 month. RESULTS: First, we found that a diagnosis of ALD is perceived as a motivator to quit drinking but that patients had difficulty processing the overwhelming amount of information about ALD they received and finding resources for cessation of alcohol use. Second, we found that the app was perceived as usable and useful for supporting drinking recovery, with patients responding favorably to the self-tracking and motivational components of the app. Finally, patients identified areas in which the app could be adapted to meet the needs of patients with ALD, such as providing information on the medical implications of an ALD diagnosis and how to care for their liver as well as connecting individuals with ALD to one another via a peer-to-peer support forum. Rates of app use were high and sustained across the entire study, with participants using the app a little more than half the days during the study on average and with 100% (11/11) of participants logging in each week. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight the need for convenient access to resources for alcohol cessation after ALD diagnosis and support the potential of an mHealth approach to integrate recovery support into care for ALD. Our findings also highlight the ways the alcohol cessation app should be modified to address ALD-specific concerns. JMIR Publications 2023-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10687677/ /pubmed/37966869 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/47404 Text en ©Linda S Park, Rachel Kornfield, Mihret Yezihalem, Andrew Quanbeck, Jessica Mellinger, Margarita German. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 15.11.2023. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Park, Linda S Kornfield, Rachel Yezihalem, Mihret Quanbeck, Andrew Mellinger, Jessica German, Margarita Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study |
title | Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study |
title_full | Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study |
title_fullStr | Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study |
title_short | Testing a Digital Health App for Patients With Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Mixed Methods Usability Study |
title_sort | testing a digital health app for patients with alcohol-associated liver disease: mixed methods usability study |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10687677/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37966869 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/47404 |
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