The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Department of Psychiatry, North Shore-LIJ Health System, Glen Oaks, NY, United States.
JMIR Ment Health. 2016 Jan 13;3(1):e5. doi: 10.2196/mental.4563.
In recent years, the number of available eHealth interventions aimed at treating behavioral and mental health challenges has been growing. From the perspective of health care providers, there is a need for eHealth interventions to be evaluated prior to clinical trials and for the limited resources allocated to empirical research to be invested in the most promising products. Following a literature review, a gap was found in the availability of eHealth interventions evaluation principles related to the patient experience of the therapeutic process. This paper introduces principles and concepts for the evaluation of eHealth interventions developed as a first step in a process to outline general evaluation guidelines that relate to the clinical context from health care providers' perspective. Our approach was to conduct a review of literature that relates to the examination of eHealth interventions. We identified the literature that was most relevant to our study and used it to define guidelines that relate to the clinical context. We then compiled a list of heuristics we found to be useful for the evaluation of eHealth intervention products' suitability for empirical examination. Four heuristics were identified with respect to the therapeutic process: (1) the product's ease of use (ie, usability), (2) the eHealth intervention's compatibility with the clinical setting, (3) the presence of tools that make it easier for the user to engage in therapeutic activities, and (4) the provision of a feasible therapeutic pathway to growth. We then used this set of heuristics to conduct a detailed examination of MyFitnessPal. This line of work could help to set the bar higher for product developers and to inform health care providers about preferred eHealth intervention designs.
近年来，旨在治疗行为和心理健康挑战的电子健康干预措施的数量不断增加。从医疗保健提供者的角度来看，需要在临床试验之前评估电子健康干预措施，并将有限的资源投入到最有前途的产品中。在文献综述之后，发现与治疗过程中患者体验相关的电子健康干预措施评估原则存在差距。本文介绍了从医疗保健提供者的角度来看与临床环境相关的一般评估指南的开发过程中作为第一步的电子健康干预措施评估原则和概念。我们的方法是对与电子健康干预措施检查相关的文献进行综述。我们确定了与我们的研究最相关的文献，并使用它来定义与临床环境相关的指南。然后，我们编制了一份我们认为对评估电子健康干预产品是否适合实证检验有用的启发式方法列表。针对治疗过程确定了四个启发式方法：（1）产品的易用性（即可用性），（2）电子健康干预与临床环境的兼容性，（3）提供使使用者更容易参与治疗活动的工具，以及（4）提供可行的治疗途径。然后，我们使用这组启发式方法对 MyFitnessPal 进行了详细检查。这项工作可以帮助提高产品开发人员的标准，并让医疗保健提供者了解首选的电子健康干预设计。
