Subtopic Deep Dive
Personas in Health Technologies
Research Guide
What is Personas in Health Technologies?
Personas in health technologies are fictional user archetypes derived from patient and clinician data to guide the design of eHealth and mHealth systems for improved adherence and workflows.
Personas address diverse needs in chronic conditions like multiple sclerosis and cardiovascular disease by enabling user-centered design (van Velsen et al., 2013, 285 citations). Studies emphasize co-design with patients and multidisciplinary teams for eHealth development (Noorbergen et al., 2021, 125 citations). Over 20 papers since 2013 explore personas in mHealth for aging populations and equity.
Why It Matters
Personas enable tailored eHealth apps that boost patient adherence, as shown in Singapore's mHealth intervention for cardiovascular medication where personas matched user preferences (Haldane et al., 2018, 70 citations). They support clinician workflows in telecare, reducing design pitfalls through multidisciplinary approaches (van Velsen et al., 2013, 285 citations). In aging populations, personas address adoption barriers, enhancing outcomes for chronic conditions like MS (Giunti et al., 2018, 120 citations) and complex needs (Bhattacharyya et al., 2018, 80 citations).
Key Research Challenges
Real-world Implementation Barriers
Digital health personas face gaps between design and deployment due to policy and organizational hurdles (Duffy et al., 2022, 84 citations). Studies highlight failures in scaling prototypes despite user-centered methods. Multidisciplinary teams report inconsistent experiences in telecare UCD (Vermeulen et al., 2014, 36 citations).
Diverse Patient Needs Modeling
Personas struggle to capture fatigue and contextual needs in MS patients for mHealth PA apps (Giunti et al., 2018, 120 citations). Older adults in Singapore show varied tech attitudes requiring nuanced archetypes (Low et al., 2021, 80 citations). Co-design must balance realism with generalization (Noorbergen et al., 2021, 125 citations).
Equity in Co-design Processes
mHealth co-design risks digital divides without addressing health literacy (Cheng et al., 2020, 67 citations). Frameworks like Ophelia integrate personas for equity but face adoption challenges. Rapid persona workshops aid HIV contexts but need scaling (Williams et al., 2014, 44 citations).
Essential Papers
Designing eHealth that Matters via a Multidisciplinary Requirements Development Approach
Lex van Velsen, Jobke Wentzel, Julia EWC Van Gemert-Pijnen · 2013 · JMIR Research Protocols · 285 citations
The requirements development approach presented in this article enables eHealth developers to apply a systematic and multi-disciplinary approach towards the creation of requirements. The cooperatio...
A user-centred design framework for mHealth
Jaydon Farao, Bessie Malila, Nailah Conrad et al. · 2020 · PLoS ONE · 193 citations
The combined framework allowed for engagement with end-users and for low-cost, rapid development of the app while addressing contextual challenges and needs. The integration of design thinking mode...
Using Co-design in Mobile Health System Development: A Qualitative Study With Experts in Co-design and Mobile Health System Development
Tyler J. Noorbergen, Marc T. P. Adam, Timm Teubner et al. · 2021 · JMIR mhealth and uhealth · 125 citations
Background The proliferation of mobile devices has enabled new ways of delivering health services through mobile health systems. Researchers and practitioners emphasize that the design of such syst...
Exploring the Specific Needs of Persons with Multiple Sclerosis for mHealth Solutions for Physical Activity: Mixed-Methods Study
Guido Giunti, Jan Kool, Octavio Rivera-Romero et al. · 2018 · JMIR mhealth and uhealth · 120 citations
mHealth solutions for increasing PA in persons with MS hold promise. Allowing for realistic goal setting and positive feedback, while minimizing usability burdens, seems to be critical for the adop...
The Challenges Toward Real-world Implementation of Digital Health Design Approaches: Narrative Review
Anthony Duffy, Greg Christie, Sylvain Moreno · 2022 · JMIR Human Factors · 84 citations
Background Digital health represents an important strategy in the future of health care delivery. Over the past decade, mobile health has accelerated the agency of health care users. Despite prevai...
Using Human-Centered Design to Build a Digital Health Advisor for Patients With Complex Needs: Persona and Prototype Development
Onil Bhattacharyya, Kathryn Mossman, Lovisa Gustafsson et al. · 2018 · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 80 citations
This study describes the key features of a comprehensive digital health advisor, but to spur its development, we need to clarify the business case and address the policy, organizational, and cultur...
Attitudes and Perceptions Toward Healthcare Technology Adoption Among Older Adults in Singapore: A Qualitative Study
Sarah Low, P. Govind Sakhardande, Yi Feng Lai et al. · 2021 · Frontiers in Public Health · 80 citations
Smart Nation is a key initiative of Singapore to move toward digitalization of its industries including healthcare. The complex negotiations of aging amid Smart Nation are addressed in this paper, ...
Reading Guide
Foundational Papers
Start with van Velsen et al. (2013, 285 citations) for multidisciplinary eHealth requirements using personas; Williams et al. (2014, 44 citations) for rapid collaborative workshops in HIV contexts.
Recent Advances
Noorbergen et al. (2021, 125 citations) on mHealth co-design pitfalls; Duffy et al. (2022, 84 citations) on implementation challenges; Cheng et al. (2020, 67 citations) on equity via Ophelia.
Core Methods
Co-design workshops (Noorbergen et al., 2021); user-centered frameworks with ISR cycles (Farao et al., 2020); rapid persona-building (Williams et al., 2014); Ophelia process (Cheng et al., 2020).
How PapersFlow Helps You Research Personas in Health Technologies
Discover & Search
Research Agent uses searchPapers and exaSearch to find 50+ papers on 'personas in eHealth design,' then citationGraph on van Velsen et al. (2013) reveals multidisciplinary clusters, and findSimilarPapers uncovers co-design extensions like Noorbergen et al. (2021).
Analyze & Verify
Analysis Agent applies readPaperContent to extract persona methods from Haldane et al. (2018), verifies claims with CoVe against Giunti et al. (2018), and runs PythonAnalysis on citation trends using pandas for adherence impact stats, graded via GRADE for evidence strength.
Synthesize & Write
Synthesis Agent detects gaps in real-world scaling from Duffy et al. (2022), flags contradictions in adoption barriers, while Writing Agent uses latexEditText for persona tables, latexSyncCitations for 10+ refs, and latexCompile for a review paper with exportMermaid workflow diagrams.
Use Cases
"Analyze citation trends and adherence outcomes from personas in mHealth papers."
Research Agent → searchPapers('personas mHealth adherence') → Analysis Agent → runPythonAnalysis(pandas on citations/outcomes from Haldane 2018, Giunti 2018) → matplotlib trend plot exported as CSV.
"Draft a LaTeX review on co-design personas for eHealth with citations and figures."
Synthesis Agent → gap detection(Duffy 2022 scaling gaps) → Writing Agent → latexEditText(persona sections) → latexSyncCitations(10 papers) → latexCompile → PDF with mermaid co-design flowchart.
"Find GitHub repos with code for persona-building tools in health apps."
Research Agent → searchPapers('persona eHealth code') → Code Discovery → paperExtractUrls(Williams 2014) → paperFindGithubRepo → githubRepoInspect → repo code for rapid workshop tools.
Automated Workflows
Deep Research workflow scans 50+ papers via searchPapers on 'personas health technologies,' structures reports with GRADE grading on van Velsen (2013) methods, and exports BibTeX. DeepScan applies 7-step CoVe to verify co-design impacts from Noorbergen (2021), with Python checkpoints on user data. Theorizer generates theory on persona equity from Cheng (2020) and Low (2021).
Frequently Asked Questions
What defines personas in health technologies?
Personas are data-driven archetypes for eHealth/mHealth design targeting patient adherence and clinician needs (van Velsen et al., 2013).
What methods are used for persona development?
Multidisciplinary requirements (van Velsen et al., 2013), co-design workshops (Noorbergen et al., 2021; Williams et al., 2014), and user-centered frameworks (Farao et al., 2020).
What are key papers?
van Velsen et al. (2013, 285 cites) on eHealth requirements; Noorbergen et al. (2021, 125 cites) on mHealth co-design; Haldane et al. (2018, 70 cites) on adherence personas.
What open problems exist?
Scaling personas to real-world deployment (Duffy et al., 2022); modeling diverse needs like fatigue (Giunti et al., 2018); ensuring equity (Cheng et al., 2020).
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Part of the Persona Design and Applications Research Guide