Usability testing of an electronic health application for patient activation on weight management

Treah Haggerty; Laurel Brabson; Kristin A Grogg; Amy D Herschell; Peter Giacobbi Jr; Cara Sedney; Geri Dino

doi:10.21037/mhealth-20-119

Usability testing of an electronic health application for patient activation on weight management

Mhealth. 2021 Jul 20:7:45. doi: 10.21037/mhealth-20-119. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Treah Haggerty^{1

2}, Laurel Brabson³, Kristin A Grogg², Amy D Herschell³, Peter Giacobbi Jr⁴, Cara Sedney⁵, Geri Dino^{4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Family Medicine, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, WV, USA.
² Clinical and Translational Doctoral Program, West Virginia Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, Morgantown, WV, USA.
³ Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA.
⁴ WV Prevention Research Center, School of Public Health, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA.
⁵ Department of Neurosurgery, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, WV, USA.
⁶ West Virginia Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, Morgantown, WV, USA.

Abstract

Background: Obesity is a leading public health concern in the United States. One promising method for enhancing patient activation to engage in health promoting behaviors is with technology in the primary care setting. The primary purpose of this study was to test the usability of a patient activation tool, called mWRAPPED, for weight management during primary care wait times.

Methods: A two-cycle approach to usability testing was followed by a pragmatic usability study in the primary care setting. The application was subsequently revised based on patient feedback. A convenience sample of patients completed usability testing in the clinical setting. Patients completed the System Usability Scale throughout all testing phases.

Results: First cycle patients provided an average score of 76.5 on the System Usability Scale. After revising mWRAPPED, the average patient System Usability Scale score increased to 80.5. mWRAPPED received an average System Usability Scale score of 77.9 when tested in the clinical setting. mWRAPPED demonstrated initial usability for primary care patients in an academic outpatient family medicine clinical setting.

Conclusions: Results of the current study will help to support the use of this application in future studies as a novel approach to delivering guideline-based weight management information to patients.

Keywords: Obesity; patient participation; technology; usability.