Self-management of COPD supported by eHealth: Patients’ attitudes towards monitoring, risk prediction and virtual coaching

Abstract

Abstract Purpose Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has a high burden on patients, tremendously affecting their quality of life. For patients to be more pro-active, self-management is important. To improve self-management, health data collection is needed for monitoring, which can be used for risk predictions and personalised coaching. Within the RE-SAMPLE project, we want to include these features in an eHealth technology. This study aims to investigate the attitudes of adults with COPD towards health monitoring, risk predictions and virtual coaching. Methods We conducted workshops and interviews with persons diagnosed with COPD. Six persons participated in the workshops which focused on topics for virtual coaching. 10 Persons participated in the interviews focusing on monitoring, risk prediction and virtual coaching. Results For participants, collecting and having access to health data is an important aspect of health monitoring. Furthermore, participants were positive towards a technology which visualizes health data for monitoring. Regarding risk predictions, participants were not all convinced about its usefulness. Finally, participants were quite positive about including a virtual coach within a self-management eHealth technology. Conclusion Taking all into consideration, we noticed that most participants felt that persons who are more recently diagnosed with COPD would benefit more from using a self-management eHealth technology. Based on our findings, we discuss implications for design in this paper.