Wright Alexander
Institute of Healthcare Informatics, University College London, London, UK.
Mhealth. 2021 Oct 20;7:60. doi: 10.21037/mhealth-20-161. eCollection 2021.
Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers worldwide. Screening, education about signs and symptoms, and improved access to treatment has helped reduce mortality. An understanding of the informational needs of women with breast cancer can help identify areas where mobile apps can further improve the experience of this patient group.
Personas are a commonly used tools in user centred design to help represent particular user archetypes. Knowledge of existing informational needs and prior research using personas in breast cancer app design were used to create two different personas through which to source apps for evaluation. The Mobile Application Rating Scale, a common evaluation framework, was used to evaluate the mobile apps across several important domains.
Becca and OWise, two apps for breast cancer, were found through a discovery process in line with the personas described. Overall, both apps scored highly on the Mobile Application Rating Scale. Both apps had limited or no research to support their use in this patient group, and had issues related to data privacy. Becca scored particularly highly in domains related to accessibility while OWise's extensive range of features scored highly for functionality.
Both apps demonstrate the ability to fill an informational needs gap as evidenced in the existing literature. As with many mobile health apps, more clinical evidence and improved data handling would help support the widespread recommendation of their use in women who are undergoing or have completed treatment for breast cancer.
乳腺癌是全球最常被诊断出的癌症之一。筛查、关于症状体征的教育以及改善治疗途径有助于降低死亡率。了解乳腺癌女性的信息需求有助于确定移动应用程序可进一步改善该患者群体体验的领域。
人物角色是用户体验设计中常用的工具，用于代表特定的用户原型。利用现有的信息需求知识以及先前在乳腺癌应用程序设计中使用人物角色的研究，创建了两个不同的人物角色，通过它们来寻找用于评估的应用程序。使用通用评估框架“移动应用程序评分量表”，在几个重要领域对移动应用程序进行评估。
通过与所描述的人物角色相符的发现过程，找到了两款乳腺癌应用程序Becca和OWise。总体而言，这两款应用程序在移动应用程序评分量表上得分都很高。两款应用程序在支持其在该患者群体中使用方面的研究都很有限或没有相关研究，并且存在数据隐私问题。Becca在与可及性相关的领域得分特别高，而OWise广泛的功能在功能性方面得分很高。
正如现有文献所证明的那样，这两款应用程序都显示出有能力填补信息需求缺口。与许多移动健康应用程序一样，更多的临床证据和改进的数据处理将有助于支持在正在接受或已完成乳腺癌治疗的女性中广泛推荐使用它们。
