| Creators: |
Schroeder, Tanja and Seaman, Karla and Nguyen, Amy and Gewald, Heiko and Georgiou, Andrew |
| Title: |
Enablers and inhibitors to the adoption of mHealth apps by patients – A qualitative analysis of German doctors’ perspectives |
| Item Type: |
Article or issue of a publication series |
| Projects: |
IDI |
| Journal or Series Title: |
Patient Education and Counseling : PEC |
| Page Range: |
Article 107865 |
| Additional Information: |
Open Access. Article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
| Date: |
2023 |
| Divisions: |
Informationsmanagement |
| Abstract (ENG): |
Objective: Germany is the first country that approved validated mobile health apps (called DiGA) for prescription
by doctors and psychotherapists. The aim of this study is to investigate doctors’ perspectives towards these
mobile health apps and their intentions to prescribe them. Additionally, we investigated the influence of different
roles and expectations of outcomes.
Methods: We used a qualitative study design to determine doctors’ viewpoints on prescribing DiGAs. We conducted
28 semi-structured interviews and used the grounded theory method for analysis. We adopted a classical
conceptualist approach to gain theoretical insights.
Results: The results show that doctors’ acceptance and support of DiGAs are critical in mobile health uptake and
utilisation. Although mobile health is seen to be supportive of patient management and patient education doctors
nevertheless need to adopt a motivating and persuasive role in the process.
Conclusions: Doctors consider DiGAs complementary to their role in patient management and are predominantly
positive about DiGAs. A trusted relationship with patients must be developed to ensure the appropriate support
of DiGAs.
Practice implications: Our study suggests that targeted education, user-centred DiGAs, consideration of social
presence and user engagement, and co-development with doctors can improve longer-term DiGA use and
effectiveness. |
| Forthcoming: |
No |
| Language: |
English |
| Link eMedia: |
Download |
| Citation: |
Schroeder, Tanja and Seaman, Karla and Nguyen, Amy and Gewald, Heiko and Georgiou, Andrew
(2023)
Enablers and inhibitors to the adoption of mHealth apps by patients – A qualitative analysis of German doctors’ perspectives.
Patient Education and Counseling : PEC, 114.
Article 107865.
ISSN 1873-5134
|
