Pais Sarita, Petrova Krassie, Parry Dave
Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 1010, New Zealand.
Department of IT, Media and Communications, Murdoch University, Perth 6150, Australia.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Dec 22;22(1):45. doi: 10.3390/s22010045.
Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a condition that appears during pregnancy and is expected to be a temporary one. While patients are encouraged to manage it themselves, research findings indicate that GDM may negatively affect the foetus; in addition, there is an increased risk of women with GDM subsequently developing Type 2 diabetes. To alleviate the risks, women with GDM are advised to maintain a record of their diet and blood glucose levels and to attend regular clinical reviews. Rather than using a paper diary, women with GDM can maintain a record of their blood glucose level readings and other relevant data using a wellness mobile application (app). However, such apps are developed for general use and may not meet the specific needs of clinical staff (physicians, dietitians, obstetricians and midwives) involved in managing GDM; for example, an app may record glucose readings but not the details of a meal taken before or after the glucose reading. Second, the apps do not permanently store the data generated by the patient and do not support the transfer of these data to a clinical system or information portal. The mobile health (mHealth) system designed and developed in this research allows one to integrate different types of user generated wellness data into a centralised database. A user-centered design (UCD) approach informed by the technology acceptance model (TAM) was adopted. This paper investigates and evaluates the effectiveness of the approach with regard to facilitating system acceptance and future adoption through an early focus on enhancing system usefulness and ease of use. The functional system requirements of the proposed system were refined through a series of interviews with the perspective of clinical users; ease-of-use and usability issues were resolved through 'think aloud' sessions with clinicians and GDM patients.
妊娠期糖尿病（GDM）是一种在孕期出现且预期为暂时性的病症。虽然鼓励患者自行管理，但研究结果表明，GDM可能会对胎儿产生负面影响；此外，患有GDM的女性日后患2型糖尿病的风险会增加。为降低风险，建议患有GDM的女性记录饮食和血糖水平，并定期接受临床检查。患有GDM的女性无需使用纸质日记，而是可以使用一款健康移动应用程序（应用）来记录血糖水平读数及其他相关数据。然而，此类应用是为一般用途开发的，可能无法满足参与管理GDM的临床工作人员（医生、营养师、产科医生和助产士）的特定需求；例如，一款应用可能会记录血糖读数，但不会记录血糖读数之前或之后所进食餐食的细节。其次，这些应用不会永久存储患者生成的数据，也不支持将这些数据传输至临床系统或信息门户。本研究设计并开发的移动健康（mHealth）系统能将不同类型的用户生成的健康数据整合到一个集中式数据库中。采用了以技术接受模型（TAM）为依据的以用户为中心的设计（UCD）方法。本文通过早期着重提高系统有用性和易用性，研究并评估该方法在促进系统接受度和未来采用方面的有效性。通过与临床用户进行一系列访谈，完善了所提议系统的功能系统要求；通过与临床医生和GDM患者进行“出声思考”环节，解决了易用性和可用性问题。
