Piloting of the virtual telecare technology ‘Addison Care’ to promote self-management in persons with chronic diseases in a community setting: protocol for a mixed-methods user experience, user engagement and usability pilot study

INTRODUCTION: Chronic diseases in older adults are one of the major epidemiological challenges of current times and leading cause of disability, poor quality of life, high healthcare costs and death. Self-management of chronic diseases is essential to improve health behaviours and health outcomes. Technology-assisted interventions have shown to improve self-management of chronic diseases. Virtual avatars can be a key factor for the acceptance of these technologies. Addison Care is a home-based telecare solution equipped with a virtual avatar named Addison, connecting older persons with their caregivers via an easy-to-use technology. A central advantage is that Addison Care provides access to self-management support for an up-to-now highly under-represented population—older persons with chronic disease(s), which enables them to profit from e-health in everyday life. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A pragmatic, non-randomised, one-arm pilot study applying an embedded mixed-methods approach will be conducted to examine user experience, usability and user engagement of the virtual avatar Addison. Participants will be at least 65 years and will be recruited between September 2022 and November 2022 from hospitals during the discharge process to home care. Standardised instruments, such as the User Experience Questionnaire, System Usability Scale, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale, Short-Form-8-Questionnaire, UCLA Loneliness Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale, Stendal Adherence with Medication Score and Self-Efficacy for Managing Chronic Diseases Scale, as well as survey-based assessments, semistructured interviews and think-aloud protocols, will be used. The study seeks to enrol 20 patients that meet the criteria. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study protocol has been approved by the ethic committee of the German Society for Nursing Science (21-037). The results are intended to be published in peer-reviewed journals and disseminated through conference papers. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: DRKS00025992.