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© 2024. This work is licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Background:Although surveys and apps are available for women to report urination and bladder symptoms, they do not include their decisions regarding toileting. Real-world factors can interfere with toileting decisions, which may then influence bladder health. This premise lacks data per want of a robust data collection tool.

Objective:The Prevention of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (PLUS) research consortium engaged a transdisciplinary team to build and test WhereIGo, a mobile data collection app for Android and iOS. The design goal was a comprehensive reporting system for capturing environmental, sociocultural, and physical factors that influence women’s decisions for toileting. Aims include having (1) an innovative feature for reporting physiologic urge sensation when “thinking about my bladder” and shortly before “I just peed,” (2) real-time reporting along with short look-back opportunities, and (3) ease of use anywhere.

Methods:The development team included a plain language specialist, a usability specialist, creative designers, programming experts, and PLUS scientific content experts. Both real-time and ecological momentary assessments were used to comprehensively capture influences on toileting decisions including perceived access to toileting, degree of busyness or stress or focus, beverage intake amount, urge degree, or a leakage event. The restriction on the maximal number of taps for any screen was six. PLUS consortium investigators did pilot-testing. Formal usability testing relied on the recruitment of community-dwelling women at four PLUS research sites. Women used the app for 2 consecutive days. Outcome measures were the system usability scale (SUS; 0-100 range) and the functional Mobile Application Rating Scale (1-5 range). These scales were embedded at the end of the app. The estimated a priori sample size needed, considering the SUS cut point score set at ≥74, was 40 women completing the study.

Results:Funding was provided by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases since July 2015. The integrity of the build process was documented through multiple 5-minute videos presented to PLUS Consortium and through WhereIGo screenshots of the final product. Participants included 44 women, with 41 (93%) completing data collection. Participants ranged in age from 21 to 85 years, were predominantly non-Hispanic White (n=25, 57%), college-educated (n=25, 57%), and with incomes below US $75,000 (n=27, 62%). The SUS score was 78.0 (SE 1.7), which was higher than 75% of the 500 products tested by the SUS developers. The mean functional Mobile Application Rating Scale score was 4.4 (SE 0.08). The build and informal acceptability testing were completed in 2019, enrollment for formal usability testing completed by June 2020, and analysis was completed in 2022.

Conclusions:WhereIGo is a novel app with good usability for women to report toileting decisions, urination, and fluid intake. Future research using the app could test the influence of real-time factors on bladder health.

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID):RR1-10.2196/54046

Details

Title
Design of a Tool Capable of Assessing Environmental Sociocultural Physical Factors Influencing Women’s Decisions on When and Where to Toilet Within Real-World Settings: Protocol for the Build and Usability Testing of a Mobile App for Use by Community-Dwelling Women
Author
Miller, Janis M  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Wyman, Jean F  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; An, Lawrence  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Chu, Haitao  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Fok, Cynthia S  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Lavender, Missy  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Lewis, Cora Elizabeth  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Markland, Alayne D  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Rickey, Leslie M  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Sheng, Ying  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Sutcliffe, Siobhan  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Lisa Kane Low  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Mueller, Elizabeth R  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; The Prevention of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (PLUS) Research Consortium20
First page
e54046
Section
Non-Randomized Studies (funded, eHealth)
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
JMIR Publications
e-ISSN
19290748
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3109505934
Copyright
© 2024. This work is licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.