Designing an mHealth Evaluation

A working knowledge of research design methodologies is important for those designing and building health apps. Because a review of current research literature should always form part of the design and development of health apps, an understanding and ability to evaluate the methods used in these research studies is an important skill-set. Further to this the intervention itself may form part of a research study or require the application of these techniques in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. This chapter provides an overview of different research designs including qualitative and quantitative designs to equip those interested in health app development with the knowledge and skills to understand and evaluate existing research as well as design studies to evaluate such apps. The chapter begins by addressing key questions that need to be considered when choosing a study design, and then provides details on commonly used designs with examples of how they have been applied to the evaluation of mHealth interventions.