What Kind Of A Mobile Health App Do Patients Truly Want? A Pilot Study Among Ambulatory Surgery Patients

Abstract

Background

An increasing number of surgeries are performed as ambulatory surgeries, and mobile health applications (m-health apps) have therefore been designed to help provide patients with more convenient health-care services and improve the working efficiency of health-care professionals (HCPs). To find an effective approach to design such m-health apps, a study to evaluate ambulatory surgery patients’ preferences is necessary.

Methods

A structured questionnaire was distributed to 360 patients undergoing ambulatory surgery to understand their demographic characteristics, preferences regarding the features and functions of m-health apps and willingness to engage with m-health apps.

Results

In total, 84.16% of ambulatory surgery patients stated that they would be willing to engage with an m-health app during the perioperative period. In addition, their top 10 necessary features and functions of m-health apps were related mainly to ambulatory surgery and communication with HCPs. Furthermore, younger age (χ²=10.42, p<0.01), employment (χ²=9.04, p<0.01), higher education (χ²=13.67, p<0.01), longer daily use of phones (χ²=11.84, p<0.01) and more frequent usage of m-health apps (χ²=23.23, p<0.01) were associated with patients’ willingness to engage with m-health apps, but only more frequent usage of m-health apps (OR=2.97, 95% CI=1.54–5.71, p<0.01) was found to be a predictor.

Conclusion

This study presents an initial evaluation of ambulatory surgery patients’ preferences regarding m-health apps. Gaining these insights will be useful to help us design an evidence-based, highly functional m-health app that best meets the needs of patients undergoing ambulatory surgery.

Keywords:

• mobile health applications
• ambulatory surgery
• preferences

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Youth Innovation Project Plan of Sichuan Medical Research [Q15048].

Author Contributions

Meng-Yan Tang and Zhi-Chao Li contributed equally as first authors. All authors contributed to data analysis, drafting or revising the article, gave final approval of the version to be published, and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no competing interests in this work.