User-Centered Development of a Mobile App for Biopsychosocial Pain Assessment in Adults: Usability, Reliability, and Validity Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Pain-related mobile applications targeting pain assessment commonly limit pain assessment to pain behaviors and physiological aspects and their quality is not always guaranteed, potentially because users and pain specialists are not involved in the development process. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to define the functional requirements and develop a mobile application for pain assessment (AvaliaDor) and assess its usability, validity, and reliability. METHODS The AvaliaDor application was developed based on the literature and the recommendations of 5 physical therapists and 5 users in cycles of evaluation, the inclusion of recommendations, and new evaluation until no further changes were required. Then, the final version of the application was tested in 52 patients with pain, who were asked to use the app twice in two consecutive days for reliability porpuses. Also, they had to complete a set of paper-based scales (Brief Pain Inventory, PainDETECT, Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and TAMPA Scale of Kinesiophobia), which were used to assess the validity of the app and the Post-Study System Usability questionnaire to assess its usability. RESULTS AvaliaDor allows the assessment of pain intensity, location, phenotype, disability, catastrophizing, and fear of movement. The correlation between the scores of the paper-based scales and the app ranged between 0.81 and 0.93 for criterion validity and between 0.41 and 0.59 for hypothesis testing. Test-retest reliability was moderate to good (ICC between 0.67 and 0.90) and the score for usability was 1.16 ± 0.27, indicating good usability. CONCLUSIONS AvaliaDor is usable and allows the valid and reliable assessment of pain from a biopsychosocial perspective.