Eliciting Requirements for a Diabetes Self-Management Application for Underserved Populations: A Multi-Stakeholder Analysis

Samuel Bonet Olivencia, Arjun H. Rao, Alec Smith and Farzan Sasangohar
Additional contact information
Samuel Bonet Olivencia: Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Arjun H. Rao: Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Alec Smith: Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Farzan Sasangohar: Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Medically underserved communities have limited access to effective disease management resources in the U.S. Mobile health applications (mHealth apps) offer patients a cost-effective way to monitor and self-manage their condition and to communicate with providers; however, current diabetes self-management apps have rarely included end-users from underserved communities in the design process. This research documents key stakeholder-driven design requirements for a diabetes self-management app for medically underserved patients. Semi-structured survey interviews were carried out on 97 patients with diabetes and 11 healthcare providers from medically underserved counties in South Texas, to elicit perspectives and preferences regarding a diabetes self-management app, and their beliefs regarding such an app’s usage and utility. Patients emphasized the need for accessible educational content and for quick access to guidance on regulating blood sugar, diet, and exercise and physical activity using multimedia rather than textual forms. Healthcare providers indicated that glucose monitoring, educational content, and the graphical visualization of diabetes data were among the top-rated app features. These findings suggest that specific design requirements for the underserved can improve the adoption, usability, and sustainability of such interventions. Designers should consider health literacy and numeracy, linguistic barriers, data visualization, data entry complexity, and information exchange capabilities.

Keywords: diabetes mellitus; self-management; blood glucose self-monitoring; mobile applications; medically underserved area; health literacy; telemedicine; disease management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/127/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/127/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2021:i:1:p:127-:d:709425

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().