Impressions and Perceptions of a Smartphone and Smartwatch Self-Management Tool for Patients With COPD: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often do not seek care until they experience an exacerbation. Improving self-management for these patients may increase health-related quality of life and reduce hospitalizations. Patients are willing to use wearable technology for real-time data reporting and perceive mobile technology as potentially helpful in COPD management, but there are many barriers to the uptake of these technologies.

Objective

We aimed to understand patients’ experiences using a wearable and mobile app and identify areas for improvement.

Methods

We conducted semi-structured interviews as part of a larger prospective cohort study wherein patients used a wearable and app for 6 months. We asked which features patients found accessible, acceptable and useful.

Results

We completed 26 interviews. We summarized our research findings into four main themes: (1) information, support and reassurance, (2) barriers to adoption, (3) impact on communication with health care providers, and (4) opportunities for improvement. Most patients found the feedback received through the app to be reassuring and useful. Some patients experienced technical difficulties with the app and found the wearable to be uncomfortable.

Conclusions

Patients found a wearable device and mobile application to be acceptable and useful for the management of COPD. We identified barriers to adoption and opportunities for improvement to the design of our app. Further research is needed to understand what people with COPD and their healthcare providers want and will use in a mobile app and wearable for COPD management.

Keywords:

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• COPD
• wearable
• eHealth
• mHealth
• digital health
• mobile application
• self-management

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the patients who participated in our study.

Author contributions

Conception and design – TS, RW

Procurement of data – TS, HR, RW

Analysis of data – TS, HR, RW, MC

Drafting of the original manuscript – TS, RW, HR, AG

Revision of the original manuscript – RW, AG, TS, HR, ED, AM, MC

Disclosure statement

Robert Wu: The funding of this study was in part by Samsung Research America (SRA). This was an Investigator-initiated study with input from SRA. Samsung had control over the application but no control or input in the methods or results of this study. They had no control over the content of the manuscript. No other authors had conflicts of interest relevant to this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data used in this study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work received grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82090014 and No. 81970037).