Browsing by Author "Strömberg, Lisbeth"

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a condition of glucose intolerance with onset or first recognition during pregnancy, and it poses multiple health risks for both the mother and the child. The prevalence of GDM is increasing globally and effective interventions are needed to reduce the associated risks. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions have a great potential in answering this need since they are cost-effective and able to reach large groups of people. mHealth solutions might be especially effective for management of chronic conditions that require patient behavior change. Investigating intervention acceptability has an important part in the process of developing successful interventions. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the prospective acceptability of an mHealth intervention for GDM from the perspective of its potential recipients. The thesis also seeks to find out whether there are any associations between technological experience and perceptions of intervention acceptability as well as ways in which the intervention acceptability could be improved. The thesis utilizes data collected in the first phase of the eMOM GDM study, a research project with the aim of developing an mHealth intervention to support the self-management of GDM. The application acceptability was studied with semi-structured interviews with 10 women currently diagnosed with GDM. Previous technological experience was self-reported by the participants in a background questionnaire. Theory-driven content analysis was used to analyze the interviews. The results show that the intervention has high prospective acceptability from the perspective of the potential participants. For most of the domains of acceptability there is still room for improvement, and several ideas for further improving the intervention’s acceptability are discussed. The results could also indicate a possible relationship between technological experience and mHealth intervention acceptability. This thesis contributes to the development of an intervention by providing insight on the factors influencing intervention acceptability and ideas on how to improve it. The results also provide valuable information for developing future mHealth solutions for GDM. The potential association between technological experience and intervention acceptability are interesting regarding all mHealth intervention development and should be studied further.