A Tailored mHealth App to Improve Health and Well-being Behavioral Transformation in the Police: Usability Testing via a Mixed-Methods Study Among UK Police Workers (Preprint)

Abstract

When considering the policing environment of 2022, many roles previously in the domain of warranted officers (police officer) are now carried out by non-warranted police staff equivalents. These police staff roles have expanded rapidly into other areas such as investigations, custody, and contact management which were traditionally seen as police officer functions and put staff under some of the same stresses as police officers. A UK police force requested help investigating technologies that could be used to improve health and wellbeing for both officers and staff.

The purpose of this study was to create a health and wellbeing application for police officers and staff, which considered the unique requirements of the users throughout the design, build, prototyping, and testing stages.

This study involved quantitative approaches (demographic online survey questions and the System Usability Scale) and qualitative approaches (open online survey questions and semi-structured interviews). Unsupervised usability testing was undertaken by (n=48) members of the commissioning client of a prototype application using their smartphones. After completing a pre-registration application for screening purposes, participants downloaded a trial version of the application. They then completed an online questionnaire after testing for ten days. A subsample of participants was interviewed (n=9). A deductive thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key themes and sub-themes.

Data collected during usability testing concerned the six domains of the application - food and diet, activity, fluid intake, sleep, good mental health, and financial wellbeing – and informed the creation of improved design during prototyping. Some usability and design issues and suggestions for improvements were also addressed and implemented – including shift management and catch-up cards - during this cycle of development.

This work highlights the importance of co-participation with officers and staff across the entire development cycle, to co-produce a human-centred design methodology to enable the development of a considered and user-centred solution. It demonstrates the need for producing a multi-functional tool rather than focusing purely on an individual element for this user group. It also highlights how linking and being able to track optional personalised elements of health data against each other, cross-referenced to individual shift patterns might help to inform and provide users with a chance for reflection and therefore influence behavioural change.

RR2-10.2196/28075