BACKGROUND
Medicine use is the most common intervention in healthcare. The frequency with which medicines are used means medication-related problems are very common. One common type of medication-related problems is adverse medicines events, which are unintended and harmful effects associated with use of medicines. Reporting of adverse medicine events to regulatory authorities are important for evaluation of safety of medicines; however, these adverse effects are frequently unreported due to various factors including a lack of consumer-friendly reporting tools.
OBJECTIVE
To develop a user-friendly digital tool for consumers to report medication-related adverse effects.
METHODS
The project consisted of three parts: (1) content development including a systematic literature search, (2) iterative system development, and (3) usability testing. The project was guided by participatory design principles, which suggest involving key stakeholders throughout the design process. The first two versions were developed as a mobile application, and were tested with end-users in two workshops. The third version was developed as a web application and were tested with consumers who were taking regular medicines. Consumers were asked to complete a modified version of the mHealth app usability questionnaire (MAUQ), an 18-item questionnaire with each item scored using a seven-level Likert scale ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The MAUQ assessed three subscales including ease of use (5 items), interface and satisfaction (7 items) and usefulness (6 items).
RESULTS
The content for the system was based on a systematic literature search, shortlisting of questions, followed by feedback from project team members and consumers. Feedback from the consumers in the two workshops were incorporated to improve the functionality, visual design and stability of the third (current) version. The third version of the system was tested with 26 consumers. Seventy nine percent of all responses on the MAUQ were scored 6 or 7, indicating that users generally strongly agree with the usability of the system. When looking at the individual domains, the system had an average score of 6.3 (standard deviation SD 0.9) for “ease of use”, 6.3 (SD 0.8) for “interface and satisfaction”, and 5.2 (SD 1.4) for “usefulness”.
CONCLUSIONS
The web-based system for medicine adverse effects reporting is a user-friendly tool developed using an iterative participatory design approach. Future research include further improving the system, particularly usefulness of the system, as well as testing the scalability and performance of the system in practice.