Acceptability of « DIDE », a mobile application designed at facilitating care adherence of patients with substance use disorder

Acceptability of « DIDE », a mobile application designed at facilitating care adherence of patients with substance use disorder

Auteurs : A.Stocker, N.Navarro, L.Schmitt, M.Delagnes, A.Doualle, V.Mallard, F.Entajan, K.Guivarc’h, P.Masse, L.Chaigneau, B.Bonneau, M.Lapeyre-Mestre, C.Arbus, A.Yrondi, J.Salles

Réfé­rence : Addic­tion science & cli­ni­cal prac­tice (N°72, Octo­ber 2024)

Abstract

Back­ground
Attri­tion conti­nues to be a major hurdle for addic­tion treat­ment. Through the prism of the attach­ment theo­ry, this phe­no­me­non can be unders­tood as a mani­fes­ta­tion of the patient’s inse­cure attach­ment style, nee­ding a high­ly-res­pon­sive care deli­ve­ry. We deve­lo­ped an elec­tro­nic health mobile appli­ca­tion, co-desi­gned with patients, aimed at hel­ping heal­th­care teams respond to their patients” needs, and fos­te­ring adhe­rence to care. This accep­ta­bi­li­ty stu­dy eva­lua­ted patients eve­ry­day use of the appli­ca­tion for eight weeks, asses­sing their satis­fac­tion with the sys­tem, and its inte­gra­tion within pro­fes­sio­nals” cur­rent prac­tice in our center.

Methods
This single-cen­ter, pros­pec­tive stu­dy was conduc­ted bet­ween Janua­ry 2022 and Decem­ber 2022. 24 adult patients with any type of addic­tion were inclu­ded. They were gran­ted access to the appli­ca­tion for eight weeks, and were invi­ted to com­plete the Sys­tem Usa­bi­li­ty Scale ques­tion­naire regar­ding their satis­fac­tion with appli­ca­tion’s usa­bi­li­ty at the end of the stu­dy. The appli­ca­tion uses active self-reports, which are later dis­cus­sed with the heal­th­care team, and fos­ter both the wor­king alliance and the deci­sion-making process.

Results
17 patients out of 24 rea­ched the pri­ma­ry end­point. On ave­rage, over the eight-weeks per­iod, patients log­ged in the appli­ca­tion 38.2 times, and sent 5.9 mes­sages to the heal­th­care team. Inter­es­tin­gly, 64.3% of the user logins were recor­ded out­side of our cen­ter’s wor­king hours (either from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m., or during week-ends and bank holi­days), and 70.8% of the patients log­ged into the appli­ca­tion at least one time bet­ween 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. 18 patients com­ple­ted the Sys­tem Usa­bi­li­ty Scale ques­tion­naire, which ave­ra­ged a score of 81.8 out of 100. Heal­th­care pro­fes­sio­nals log­ged in the appli­ca­tion’s mes­sa­ging sys­tem 4.5 times a day on average.

Conclu­sions
This pre­li­mi­na­ry stu­dy shows pro­mi­sing results, as patients enga­ged well with various com­po­nents of the appli­ca­tion. It was moreo­ver pos­sible for heal­th­care wor­kers in our cen­ter to inte­grate this tool in their dai­ly acti­vi­ties. More work is nee­ded to bet­ter unders­tand the various patients” needs regar­ding the appli­ca­tion, fur­ther streng­then their adhe­rence to the inter­ven­tion, and unders­tand pro­fes­sio­nals” moti­va­tions to use the application.