Colloquia

Summary

People living with COPD and other complex chronic conditions would benefit from increased self-management of their disease, as this can slow down the progression of the disease and may prevent hospitalizations. A new European project called RE-SAMPLE aims to realize this goal through provision of virtual coaching driven by Artificial Intelligence in an app. The research described in this thesis investigates how to reach effective engagement of the patient in using this eHealth tool to improve their self-management, to ultimately improve their quality of life.

Value Sensitive Design is applied to identify and define the values that are most important to the target group. Furthermore, Capability Sensitive Design is used to complement Value Sensitive Design with an ethical theory. Connecting the capabilities that follow from Capability Sensitive Design to the values in the value hierarchy ensures consistency and completeness of the hierarchy. Next, the key values are used to define extreme user personas, to make the system as inclusive as possible. After the concept development, the conclusions of the analysis and the concepts are evaluated by six patients during a workshop. From this evaluation workshop it is concluded that the expansion concept scored best on the key values for effective engagement. In the recommendations, guidelines are provided for further development of the technology.

The evaluation was limited as these patients are not the extreme users of the system. Therefore, future research should include developing a prototype for the proposed concept and conducting more elaborate user testing. Also, for validation and optimization of the system, it should be tested by people who are struggling with technology and self-management of their disease. From this research it can be concluded that an iterative and participatory design process, alongside a thorough analysis of the patient values and capabilities, contributes to the engagement of users in the eHealth technology.