Objective: To evaluate the usability and acceptability of three different digital health technologies developed for Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: PD care requires meeting patients’ changing needs. Technology can play a key role in this. Technology-enabled care (TEC) is defined as the use of technology to help with diagnosis, track clinical progression, and facilitate care. The framework of how TEC should be developed and evaluated remains to be established.

Method: We conducted a multicenter international study, including five tertiary PD centers, between December 2020 and September 2023 to evaluate the usability and acceptability of three digital technologies (a video-based technology, a respiratory physiotherapy system, and a sensors-based system – a,b,c from now on) and codesign them with People with Parkinson’s (PwP). After the initial training and use of the technologies, PwP answered a usability endpoint, the System Usability Scale (SUS) (1), as the primary outcome and an ad hoc survey about the perceived use of technology. The survey was analyzed using thematic analysis to inform improvements and codesign the three TECs with PwP.

Results: A total of 43 patients were analyzed (33 for a, 16 for b, 32 for c), with a median age of 67 years (IQR [59.9,71.5]), 15 females, with a median disease duration of 9.6 years (IQR [5,13.7]) and a median value in the MDS-UPRDS III scale of 29 (IQR [19,42]). The three digital health technologies were found to be within the acceptable usability values (median value of 75 in the SUS scale for a, 74 for b and 82.5 for c, with good user acceptance and acceptance of possible future use. The combination of all the data allowed us to observe that, although the patients recognized the relevance of using them, they valued how confident they felt with their usage, technical aspects such as the different uses according to their functionality level, clear instructions, and easy-to-understand reports.

Conclusion: This study suggests that evaluating usability and acceptance is fundamental as it involves the future user of the technology in the development process, namely in terms of user interface, compatibility, guidance, or usefulness.

References: 1. Brooke J. SUS – A quick and dirty usability scale.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/codesigning-tech-with-patients-insights-from-the-quantitative-and-qualitative-analysis-of-three-technologies-used-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/