BACKGROUND
Digital health education can enhance the quality of life of patients with heart failure by providing accessible and tailored information, which is essential for effective self-care and self-management.
OBJECTIVE
This work aims to develop a mobile health knowledge transfer concept for heart failure in a user-centered design process grounded in theoretical frameworks. This approach centers on enhancing the usability, patient engagement, and meaningfulness of mobile health education in the context of heart failure.
METHODS
A user-centered design process was employed. First, semi-structured stakeholder interviews were conducted with patients (n = 9) and medical experts (n = 5). The results were used to develop a health knowledge transfer concept for a mobile health application for heart failure. This concept was implemented as a digital prototype based on an existing German mobile health application for patients with heart failure. We used this prototype to evaluate our concept with patients with heart failure in a study composed of user testing and semi-structured patient interviews (n = 7).
RESULTS
Stakeholder interviews identified five themes relevant to mobile health education: individualization, content relevance, media diversity, motivation strategies, and trust-building mechanisms. The evaluation of our prototype showed that patients value the adaptation of content to individual interests and prior knowledge. Digital rewards like badges and push notifications can increase motivation and engagement but should be used with care to avoid overload, irrelevance, and repetition.
CONCLUSIONS
Our findings emphasize the importance of tailoring mobile health education to the specific needs and preferences of patients with heart failure. At the same time, they also highlight the careful implementation of motivation strategies to promote user engagement effectively. These implications offer guidance for developing more impactful interventions to improve health outcomes for this population.