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Title Methods for Design and Formative Evaluation of eHealth Interventions
Course number 5301
Programme Vårdvetenskap (PUF-V)
Language English
Credits 3.0
Date 2021-11-08 -- 2021-12-03
Responsible KI department Institutionen för lärande, informatik, management och etik
Specific entry requirements
Purpose of the course Digital health—eHealth—is a rapidly growing area with high potential to improve health and social care from both a clinical and individual perspective. In research, digitalization creates new possibilities for data collection, but also the ability to increase outreach and deliver information, support and care to different patients or population groups. There is a great need for innovative digital solutions to improve health, social or self-care; however, to ensure that an eHealth intervention will be useful in the specific context that it is intended for, it needs to be built upon evidence-based design methods and be carefully tested and evaluated before being implemented. It is these design and evaluation methods that are addressed in this course. The course is designed for doctoral students and postdocs who work on an ongoing eHealth project, or plan/aim to include an eHealth component or digital tool in a research intervention study.
Intended learning outcomes At the end of this course, the students should be able to:

[Knowledge and understanding]
• describe and discuss the importance of understanding and analyzing healthcare organizations, users’ needs and requirements in different contexts
• describe and compare different methods for context-of-use and user needs analyses and their application
• explain, discuss and analyze different evaluation methods and techniques to assess functionality and usability in eHealth interventions

[Skills]
• based on the chosen individual assignment and the student’s own research project, apply at least one of the methods related to user needs analysis, requirements specification, or formative evaluation
• critically assess the choice and application of method in another student’s individual work

[Attitudes]
• explain and motivate the need of an iterative development process and continuous user involvement
Contents of the course When studying the effects of eHealth interventions, the results will be highly dependent on how well the developed eHealth intervention or digital tool is designed to suit the intended use and specific context of care. Therefore, this course focuses on user-centered and collaborative methods for the design as well as evidence-based tools for formative evaluation of interventions – to avoid pitfalls in eHealth design.

During the course, students will learn about methods for analyzing health and social care organizations and user needs, as well as documentation and communication of these and formulation of requirements based on the needs. Specific prerequisites for requirements engineering in health and social care are discussed. Furthermore, the course gives an overview of relevant methods and techniques for evaluation of eHealth solutions in health, social and self-care, and lifestyle interventions. The aim is also to provide an understanding of the role of formative evaluations in the design process.

Different methods and tools will be presented, and the students will work on their own research project by applying at least one of these methods during the course.
Teaching and learning activities The course spans over 4 weeks (50%) with lectures, seminars, group discussions and an individual assignment related to the student’s own research project. The individual assignments will be supervised by an external researcher with experience in the area.
Compulsory elements Active participation in group discussions and participation in seminars when individual assignments are presented is compulsory. The course examiner assesses if and, in that case, how absence can be compensated. Only when the student has participated in all compulsory parts, or compensated absence in accordance with the examiner’s instructions, the student's results for the course will be registered in LADOK.
Examination Examination consists of an individual written assignment, oral presentation of the individual work at the examination seminar, as well as peer review of another student’s work. Peer review includes both oral opposition at the examination seminar and a written opposition report.
Literature and other teaching material • Sharp, Helen; Preece, Jennifer; Rogers, Yvonne. Interaction design: beyond human-computer interaction 4th ed.: Chichester: Wiley, cop. 2015 - xiii, 567 s. ISBN:9781119020752 LIBRIS-ID:17023916

• Brender, Jytte. Handbook of evaluation methods for health informatics Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press, c2006 - xv, 361 s. ISBN:0-12-370464-2 LIBRIS-ID:10158361

• Selected scientific articles
Number of students 8 - 12
Selection of students Selection will be based on 1) the relevance of the course syllabus for the applicant’s doctoral project (according to written motivation), 2) start date of doctoral studies (priority given to earlier start date).
More information Due to COVID-19 situation, the course 2021 is planned to be given online through Zoom. Lectures and seminars are being planned on: Mon-Thu Nov 8-11th (week 45); Nov 15-16th and 18-19th (week 46); and Nov 29th and Dec 2-3rd (week 48). All scheduled course days are half-days (9am-12am) except Thursday Dec 2nd which is a full day (examination seminars). Nov 22-26th (week 47) is individual work. The course targets PhD-students or postdocs with different types of background, who are conducting or plan to conduct an intervention study with a digital/eHealth component. For those interested in the evaluation and implementation of digital lifestyle interventions, we recommend combining the course with the doctoral course given at the Linköping University: Digital lifestyle interventions – from idea to implementation, 3 credits.
Additional course leader The course is led by Maria Henström (course director, maria.henstrom@ki.se) and Sabine Koch (teacher and examiner, sabine.koch@ki.se). Maria is a postdoc researcher at the Dept of Biosciences and Nutrition, KI, working primarily with mHealth lifestyle interventions within maternal and child healthcare. Sabine is professor in health informatics at the Dept of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics and has 30 years experience of research and education in eHealth.
Latest course evaluation Not available
Course responsible Maria Henström
Institutionen för biovetenskaper och näringslära

maria.henstrom@ki.se

Karolinska Institutet, Group MLÖ/Maria Henström

14183
Huddinge
Contact person Sabine Koch
Institutionen för lärande, informatik, management och etik

sabine.koch@ki.se


Maria Henström
Institutionen för biovetenskaper och näringslära

maria.henstrom@ki.se

Karolinska Institutet, Group MLÖ/Maria Henström

14183
Huddinge