Onasanya Adeola, Bengtson Michel, Agbana Temitope, Oladunni Opeyemi, van Engelen Jo, Oladepo Oladimeji, Diehl Jan Carel
Sustainable Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CE Delft, The Netherlands.
Centre of Infectious Diseases, Department of Parasitology, Leiden University Medical Centre, 2333 ZC Leiden, The Netherlands.
Trop Med Infect Dis. 2023 Mar 16;8(3):176. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed8030176.
Designing new and inclusive diagnostic tools to detect Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) to achieve rational disease control requires a co-design process where end-users' input is important. Failure to involve all potential end-users in new diagnostics for NTDs can result in low use and adoption failure, leading to persistent infection hot spots and ineffective disease control. There are different categories of potential end-users of new diagnostic tools for NTD control, and it is unclear if there are differences between the user efficiency, effectiveness, perception, and acceptability across these end-user categories. This study evaluated the usability, user perception, contextual factors affecting the user's experience, and acceptability of a new digital optical diagnostic device for NTDs across three types of potential end users. A total of 21 participants were tested. Laboratory scientists, technicians, and Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) in training achieved similar scores on the usability and user perception questionnaires with no statistically significant difference between end-user categories. All participants also have high scores for the user perception domains which strongly correlate with the acceptability of the AiDx NTDx Assist device. This study indicates that, by providing digital diagnostic tools in combination with minimal training and support, CHEWs undergoing training and, by extension, CHEWs post-training, can be involved in the diagnoses of NTDs, potentially enhancing a community's capabilities to diagnose, treat, and control NTDs.
设计新的、具有包容性的诊断工具以检测被忽视的热带病（NTDs）从而实现合理的疾病控制，需要一个共同设计的过程，其中终端用户的投入很重要。未能让所有潜在终端用户参与NTDs的新诊断可能导致使用率低和采用失败，从而导致持续的感染热点和无效的疾病控制。对于NTD控制的新诊断工具，有不同类别的潜在终端用户，目前尚不清楚这些终端用户类别在用户效率、有效性、认知和可接受性方面是否存在差异。本研究评估了一种用于NTDs的新型数字光学诊断设备在三种潜在终端用户类型中的可用性、用户认知、影响用户体验的背景因素以及可接受性。总共测试了21名参与者。实验室科学家、技术人员以及正在接受培训的社区卫生推广工作者（CHEWs）在可用性和用户认知问卷上获得了相似的分数，终端用户类别之间没有统计学上的显著差异。所有参与者在与AiDx NTDx Assist设备可接受性密切相关的用户认知领域也都获得了高分。这项研究表明，通过提供数字诊断工具并辅以最少的培训和支持，正在接受培训的CHEWs以及由此延伸的培训后的CHEWs可以参与NTDs的诊断，这有可能提高社区诊断、治疗和控制NTDs的能力。
