Self-Monitoring Diabetes-Related Foot Ulcers with the MyFootCare App: A Mixed Methods Study

People with diabetes-related foot ulcers (DFUs) need to perform self-care consistently over many months to promote healing and to mitigate risks of hospitalisation and amputation. However, during that time, improvement in their DFU can be hard to detect. Hence, there is a need for an accessible meth...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2023-02, Vol.23 (5), p.2547
Main Authors: Ploderer, Bernd, Clark, Damien, Brown, Ross, Harman, Joel, Lazzarini, Peter A, Van Netten, Jaap J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amputation, Surgical
Analysis
augmented reality
Caregivers
Cell Phone
Cell phones
Cellular telephones
Clinics
Diabetes
Diabetes Mellitus
Diabetes therapy
diabetic
Diabetic foot
Diabetic Foot - diagnosis
Diabetics
Feedback
Foot
Foot diseases
foot ulcer
Healing
Health care reform
Humans
Interviews
Leg ulcers
Medical personnel
medical selfie
Methods
Mixed methods research
Mobile Applications
mobile health
Monitoring
patient generated health data
Patients
Self-care, Health
Smartphones
Type 2 diabetes
Ulcers
Usability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:People with diabetes-related foot ulcers (DFUs) need to perform self-care consistently over many months to promote healing and to mitigate risks of hospitalisation and amputation. However, during that time, improvement in their DFU can be hard to detect. Hence, there is a need for an accessible method to self-monitor DFUs at home. We developed a new mobile phone app, "MyFootCare", to self-monitor DFU healing progression from photos of the foot. The aim of this study is to evaluate the engagement and perceived value of MyFootCare for people with a plantar DFU over 3 months' duration. Data are collected through app log data and semi-structured interviews (weeks 0, 3, and 12) and analysed through descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Ten out of 12 participants perceive MyFootCare as valuable to monitor progress and to reflect on events that affected self-care, and seven participants see it as potentially valuable to enhance consultations. Three app engagement patterns emerge: continuous, temporary, and failed engagement. These patterns highlight enablers for self-monitoring (such as having MyFootCare installed on the participant's phone) and barriers (such as usability issues and lack of healing progress). We conclude that while many people with DFUs perceive app-based self-monitoring as valuable, actual engagement can be achieved for some but not for all people because of various facilitators and barriers. Further research should target improving usability, accuracy and sharing with healthcare professionals and test clinical outcomes when using the app.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s23052547