Development and pilot testing of a mobile health solution for asthma self-management: asthma action plan smartphone application pilot study.

BACKGROUND

Collaborative self-management is a core recommendation of national asthma guidelines; the written action plan is the knowledge tool that supports this objective. Mobile health technologies have the potential to enhance the effectiveness of the action plan as a knowledge translation tool.

OBJECTIVE

To design, develop and pilot a mobile health system to support asthma self-management.

METHODS

The present study was a prospective, single-centre, nonrandomized, pilot preintervention-postintervention analysis. System design and development were guided by an expert steering committee. The network included an agnostic web browser-based asthma action plan smartphone application (SPA). Subjects securely transmitted symptoms and peak flow data daily, and received automated control assessment, treatment advice and environmental alerts.

RESULTS

Twenty-two adult subjects (mean age 47 years, 82% women) completed the study. Biophysical data were received on 84% of subject days (subject day = 1 subject × 1 day). Subjects viewed their action plan current zone of control on 54% and current air quality on 61% of subject days, 86% followed self-management advice and 50% acted to reduce exposure risks. A large majority affirmed ease of use, clarity and timeliness, and 95% desired SPA use after the study. At baseline, 91% had at least one symptom criterion for uncontrolled asthma and 64% had ≥2, compared with 45% (P=0.006) and 27% (P=0.022) at study close. Mean Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire score improved from 4.3 to 4.8 (P=0.047).

CONCLUSIONS

A dynamic, real-time, interactive, mobile health system with an integrated asthma action plan SPA can support knowledge translation at the patient and provider levels.