Article Summary
The article focuses on the development and testing of a Human Augmentics (HA) approach that includes health-centered monitoring and messaging systems to inform, persuade, and motivate users to pursue healthy practices. Captology and the Elaborate Likelihood Model of persuasion were the main guides toward the formulation of the products. The researchers and developers in this article assessed similar apps on phone app markets and their limitations before developing the SPV Asthma smartphone app that they tested. Their solution involved both hardware and software, with a cloud-based system to store data logs of puff events. The researchers conducted the clinical pilot on low-income Black American adolescents, after testing it with testers who were familiar with the project. The results of this study showed that adherence to daily controller medication increased and use of rescue medication decreased from 3 puffs a week to 0.
In-Depth Analysis of the Methodology Used in the Study
The study featured research that had a few flaws in the methodology they chose to employ. The problems with the methodology could prove costly to the viability and credibility of the final results. One such problem with the methodology was during the hardware and software testing, where the researchers opted to conduct the tests using the electronic asthma dose counters and phones. The tests were technical and should have relied more on IT or computer-savvy experts to monitor the systems such as the basketball shoot after a completed dose of 2 puffs and the popup messages that came up on every dose after exceeding the recommended limit. Additionally, tech-savvy personnel would be better suited to conduct the data verification to identify accuracy and discrepancies as they are more competent in handling it. The use of medical personnel to carry out some of the technical aspects of the tests was a mistake, which might have resulted in unnoticed errors.
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There were also significant methodological problems at the clinical pilot study stage. One such problem was the lack of a control group in the research, thus creating no baseline for the entire research. The researchers overlooked the importance of including a control group to allow for meaningful comparisons with the test subjects and to allow them to eliminate other external factors that could influence the results of the research. Another problem during the clinical pilot study stage was the test subjects’ group size. The researchers, perhaps due to unmentioned constraints, conducted the study on a small group of 12 study participants. The size of this group does not accurately represent a proper cross-section of the broader population that their HA programs intend to assist. Moreover, the tests conducted on these 12 study participants could not have brought out all the possible scenarios that may occur during the usage of their app and device. The study should have included way more study participants to get more comprehensive input on the challenges and recommendations regarding the app and devices.
The SPV Asthma smartphone application and the accompanying device were at the core of these studies. The researchers made several assumptions that led to a methodological flaw in conducting the study. They used a phone operating system that was obsolete and assumed that everyone who would use the devices would be tech-savvy. In the study, they neglected the necessity of educating their test subjects first, which is a basic step even when the participants are conversant with the technology. This, therefore, might be a flawed experiment because the fact that the 12 study participants could easily use the devices does not guarantee the same results in a broader population group.
