Integrated Design Method and Usability Outcomes of a Mobile Application for Psychological Well-Being During Pregnancy

The last decade has seen a radical change in the use of technologies. Mobile computing is the main technology of this decade. More and more often we are dealing with portable tools, and portable devices; medical instrumentation such as portable and connected electrocardiographs, pulse-oximeters... is widespread, especially due to COVID-19 pandemic situation in the last two years. However, mental healthcare is a critical domain which however is often unexplored, especially in terms of human factors and ergonomics. Few studies analyze the ergonomics factor and usability of mobile applications in the mental health field. This paper reports a study on the creation of a digital system with a tailor-made application for monitoring the mental health of pregnant women. The paper proposes a methodological analysis carried out with future moms and different stakeholders, to identify the most suitable solution for the psycho-physical needs of mothers and at the same time those of the various actors during pregnancy (dads, psychologists, psychiatrists). The work shows the ergonomic effectiveness of an app for the collection of the Edinburgh Scale (EPDS), designed with the users, both from the point of view of usability and the data collected. The result shows good adherence in terms of the App’s active users and EPDS data gathering, a decrease in the evaluation of the EPDS scale, and therefore a reduced severity of depressive symptoms using a combination of app and home interventions by psychologists.