Integration of Conversion Factors for the Development of an Inclusive eHealth Tool With Caregivers of Functionally Dependent Older Persons: Social Justice Design

Abstract

Background eHealth can help reduce social health inequalities (SHIs); at the same time, it also has the potential to increase them. Several conversion factors can be integrated into the development of an eHealth tool to make it inclusive: (1) providing physical, technical, and financial access to eHealth; (2) enabling the integration of people at risk of SHIs into the research and development of digital projects targeting such populations (co-design or participatory research); (3) promoting consistency between the digital health literacy level of future users (FUs) and the eHealth tool; (4) developing an eHealth tool that is consistent with the technological skills of FUs; (5) ensuring that the eHealth tool is consistent with the help-seeking process of FUs; (6) respecting the learning capacities of FUs; and (7) being sensitive to FUs’ cultural context. However, only little empirical evidence pointing out how these conversion factors can be integrated into an effective eHealth tool is available. Objective On the basis of Amartya Sen’s theoretical framework of social justice, the objective of this study was to explore how these 7 conversion factors can be integrated into an eHealth tool for caregivers of functionally dependent older persons. Methods This study was based on a social justice design and participant observation as part of a large-scale research project funded by the Ministère de la Famille through the Quebec Ami des Aînés Program. Data were collected by recording the preparation sessions, the co-design and advisory committee sessions, as well as the debriefing sessions. The results were analyzed using Miles and Huberman’s method. Results A total of 78 co-designers participated in 11 co-design sessions, 24 preparation sessions, and 11 debriefing sessions. Of the 7 conversion factors, 5 could be explored in this experiment. The integration of conversion factors has been uneven. The participation of FUs in the development of the tool supports other conversion factors. Respecting the eHealth literacy level of FUs means that their learning abilities and technological skills are also respected because they are closely related to one another and are therefore practically difficult to be distinguished. Conclusions Conversion factors can be integrated into the development of eHealth tools that are intended to be inclusive and contribute to curbing SHIs by integrating FU participation into the tool design process.

Citizen involvement in research on technological innovations for health, care or well-being: a scoping review

“…Other often used terms were community based participatory research (N=9) [48, 52–54, 56, 70, 71, 93, 94], co-creation (N=8) [43, 46, 58, 62, 73, 97, 107, 120], public and patient involvement (N=7) [67, 79, 90, 102, 109, 111, 114], participatory action research (N=5) [59, 68, 108, 112, 122], and user centered design (N=4) [34, 89, 92, 115]. Citizen science was only used in two records [49, 118], and usability study [47], co-production [51], human centered participatory design [84], social Justice design [87], symposium [95], community oriented approach [98], and participation in research [116] were all only used once to describe the research design.…”

“…The term citizen science was only used in two records and participatory design was most prominent in the included records. Identical authors give different terms to their research design across studies [42, 43, 46, 47, 86, 87], and when using similar terms, the authors base the research method on different sources [86, 88]. Inclusion of all the different research methods is due to our broad search string, however, this is in line with continuing discussions on the definition for citizen science [11], and the acceptance of working in citizen science with different terms and methodologies [12].…”

Addressing health literacy in the digital domain: insights from a literature review

“…Besides, the providers of care should be encouraged to get a greater awareness of the importance of digital health literacy to achieve a durable viability of health services’ provision and to adopt a precautionary approach in interacting with patients through ICTs. This is possible by stimulating health-care professionals to acquire adequate information on the special information needs of different socio-demographic categories of patients (Amoah et al , 2021), to arrange proper infrastructures to host their exchanges with patients and informal caregivers (Latulippe et al , 2020) and to improve the quality of health information delivered to patients and informal caregivers via ICTs and digital tools (Park and Min, 2020).…”

Co-Design to Support the Development of Inclusive eHealth Tools for Caregivers of Functionally Dependent Older Persons: Social Justice Design (Preprint)

“…The objective of this paper is to explore the ways in which co-design can support the development of an inclusive eHealth tool for caregivers of functionally dependent older persons. This paper is the third in a series of papers included in a thesis on the reduction of SHIs in an eHealth context [7,36]. The methodology behind this thesis is detailed in the second paper of this series [36] and is briefly summarized here.…”

“…This paper is the third in a series of papers included in a thesis on the reduction of SHIs in an eHealth context [7,36]. The methodology behind this thesis is detailed in the second paper of this series [36] and is briefly summarized here.…”