Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: mHealth
- Creators: Dixon, Maria
- Creators: Gary, Kevin A
- Resource Type: Text
Description
In the last decade, the number of people who own a mobile phone or portable electronic communication device has grown exponentially. Recent advances in smartphone technology have enabled mobile devices to provide applications (“mHealth apps”) to support delivering interventions, tracking health treatments, or involving a healthcare team into the treatment process and symptom monitoring. Although the popularity of mHealth apps is increasing, few lessons have been shared regarding user experience design and evaluation for such innovations as they relate to clinical outcomes. Studies assessing usability for mobile apps primarily rely on survey instruments. Though surveys are effective in determining user perception of usability and positive attitudes towards an app, they do not directly assess app feature usage, and whether feature usage and related aspects of app design are indicative of whether intended tasks are completed by users. This is significant in the area of mHealth apps, as proper utilization of the app determines compliance to a clinical study protocol. Therefore it is important to understand how design directly impacts compliance, specifically what design factors are prevalent in non-compliant users. This research studies the impact of usability features on clinical protocol compliance by applying a mixed methods approach to usability assessment, combining traditional surveys, log analysis, and clickstream analysis to determine the connection of design to outcomes. This research is novel in its construction of the mixed methods approach and in its attempt to tie usability results to impacts on clinical protocol compliance. The validation is a case study approach, applying the methods to an mHealth app developed for early prevention of anxiety in middle school students. The results of three empirical studies are shared that support the construction of the mixed methods approach.
ContributorsPatwardhan, Mandar (Author) / Gary, Kevin A (Thesis advisor) / Pina, Armando (Committee member) / Amresh, Ashish (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
For the past decade, mobile health applications are seeing greater acceptance due to their potential to remotely monitor and increase patient engagement, particularly for chronic disease. Sickle Cell Disease is an inherited chronic disorder of red blood cells requiring careful pain management. A significant number of mHealth applications have been developed in the market to help clinicians collect and monitor information of SCD patients. Surveys are the most common way to self-report patient conditions. These are non-engaging and suffer from poor compliance. The quality of data gathered from survey instruments while using technology can be questioned as patients may be motivated to complete a task but not motivated to do it well. A compromise in quality and quantity of the collected patient data hinders the clinicians' effort to be able to monitor patient's health on a regular basis and derive effective treatment measures. This research study has two goals. The first is to monitor user compliance and data quality in mHealth apps with long and repetitive surveys delivered. The second is to identify possible motivational interventions to help improve compliance and data quality. As a form of intervention, will introduce intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors within the application and test it on a small target population. I will validate the impact of these motivational factors by performing a comparative analysis on the test results to determine improvements in user performance. This study is relevant, as it will help analyze user behavior in long and repetitive self-reporting tasks and derive measures to improve user performance. The results will assist software engineers working with doctors in designing and developing improved self-reporting mHealth applications for collecting better quality data and enhance user compliance.
ContributorsRallabhandi, Pooja (Author) / Gary, Kevin A (Thesis advisor) / Gaffar, Ashraf (Committee member) / Bansal, Srividya (Committee member) / Amresh, Ashish (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This pilot study evaluated whether Story Champs and Puente de Cuentos helped bilingual preschoolers increase their usage of emotional terms and ability to tell stories. Participants in this study included 10 Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers. Intervention was conducted in 9 sessions over 3 days using the Test of Narrative Retell to measure results. Results did not find significant gains in either emotional term usage or ability to tell stories, but the results were promising as a pilot study.
ContributorsSato, Leslie Mariko (Author) / Restrepo, Maria (Thesis director) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are known to show impairments in various domains of executive function (EF) such as behavioral flexibility or inhibitory control. Research suggests that EF impairment in adults with ASD may relate to ASD core symptoms, restrictive behaviors and social communication deficits. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has shown promise for improving EF abilities in neurotypical adults, but research has not explored its efficacy or neural mechanisms in adults with ASD. This pilot study examines the effects of an 8-week MBSR intervention on self-report measures of EF and resting-state functional connectivity in a sample of adults with ASD. Fifty-four participants were assigned either to an MBSR group (n = 29) or a social support group (n = 25). Executive function was measured using the BRIEF-2 before and after the intervention for the twenty-seven participants in the second cohort. MBSR-specific improvements in EF were found for BRIEF measures of initiation, inhibition, and working-memory. Resting-state fMRI data was analyzed using independent component analysis (ICA), and group by time resting-state functional connectivity differences were observed between the cerebellar network and frontal regions including the right frontal pole (rFP), medial frontal cortex (MFC) and left and right superior frontal gyri (SFG). The MBSR group showed increases in functional connectivity between the cerebellum and EF regions which correlated with improvements in BRIEF-2 measures. These findings suggest that MBSR may improve EF domains in adults with ASD, and that increases in functional connectivity between the cerebellum and frontal regions while at rest may be a mechanism for such improvements.
ContributorsGuerithault, Nicolas (Author) / Braden, B. Blair (Thesis advisor) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Committee member) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Autistic adults face heightened risk of psychiatric disorders, with depression occurrence estimated at quadruple the rate of the general population. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), an intensive 8-week in-person intervention, reduces depressive symptoms in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, access to these programs is restricted due to financial, geographic, and scheduling limitations. Additionally, lapses in practice post-intervention cause these effects to be short-lived. This study examines antidepressant effects of an 8-week app-delivered mindfulness meditation intervention using Ten Percent Happier in adults with ASD and explores whether anchoring meditation practice to a preexisting behavior will improve therapy compliance and depression-related efficacy. Ninety-seven participants were randomly assigned to either App Only (n=30), App + Habit training (n=27) or Waitlist Control (n=40). App Only and App + Habit groups were requested to meditate a minimum of 10 minutes per day, 5 days per week for 8 consecutive weeks using the mobile application. The App + Habit group received additional instruction to anchor leaving the bathroom each morning with meditation; The App Only group was only provided with education on habit formation. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) at pre- and post-intervention. All groups received weekly ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) to assess frequency and length of practice. The App + Habit group was additionally assessed for cue-initiated meditation frequency. Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Pre-to-post changes on BDI-II scores indicated a group by time interaction (p=0.04) and a main effect of time (p <0.001). Post-hoc analysis revealed the App + Habit group exclusively showed significant decline in depressive symptoms (p<0.001). The App + Habit group showed greater number of days meditated, average minutes per day of meditating, and continuation of meditation practice 8-weeks after the intervention period, compared to the App Only group.
Findings support app-delivered mindfulness interventions as an accessible and cost-effective alternative to traditional in-person mindfulness training for Autistic adults. However, results suggest app-based mindfulness tools may only be effective when delivered with specific habit formation instruction. Additionally, habit formation instruction led to greater adherence to meditation practice after the study period ended.
ContributorsVink, Schuyler Rae (Author) / Braden, B. Blair (Thesis advisor) / Stecher, Chad (Committee member) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Rogalsky, Corriane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022