Know thy eHealth user: development of biopsychosocial personas from a study of older adults with heart failure
Open accessAbstract
Background Personas are a canonical user-centered design method increasingly used in health informatics research. Personas-empirically-derived user archetypes-can be used by eHealth designers to gain a robust understanding of their target end users such as patients.Objective To develop biopsychosocial personas of older patients with heart failure using quantitative analysis of survey data.Method Data were collected using standardized surveys and medical record abstraction from 32 older adults with heart failure recently hospitalized for acute heart failure exacerbation. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on a final dataset of n=30. Nonparametric analyses were used to identify differences between clusters on 30 clustering variables and seven outcome variables.Results Six clusters were produced, ranging in size from two to eight patients per cluster. Clusters differed significantly on these biopsychosocial domains and subdomains: demographics (age, sex); medical status (comorbid diabetes); functional status (exhaustion, household work ability, hygiene care ability, physical ability); psychological status (depression, health literacy, numeracy); technology (Internet availability); healthcare system (visit by home healthcare, trust in providers); social context (informal caregiver support, cohabitation, marital status); and economic context (employment status). Tabular and narrative persona descriptions provide an easy reference guide for informatics designers.Discussion Personas development using approaches such as clustering of structured survey data is an important tool for health informatics professionals. We describe insights from our study of patients with heart failure, then recommend a generic ten-step personas development process. Methods strengths and limitations of the study and of personas development generally are discussed.
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References 84 · Cited by 131
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- [15]Cooper A Reimann R Cronin D Noessel C Csizmadi J LeMoine D About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design Wiley San Francisco, CA 2014
- [49]Hall M Zheng B Dugan E Camacho F Kidd K Mishra A Balkrishnan R Measuring patients' trust in their primary care providers Med Care Res Rev 14 2002 293 318 12205830
- Authors
- Holden, R. J., Kulanthaivel, A., Purkayastha, S., Goggins, K. M., & Kripalani, S.
- Affiliations
- Regenstrief Institute (US)
- Indiana University Indianapolis (US)
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center (US)
- Vanderbilt University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Holden, Richard J.
- Venue
- International Journal of Medical Informatics
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-12
- Volume
- 108
- Pages
- 158-167
- ISSN
- 1386-5056 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5793874
- OpenAlex
- W2764054034
- Cited by
- 131
- References
- 84
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 9.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Medical Informatics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- IUScholarWorks (Indiana University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Veterans Affairs (VA) Center
- National Institute on Aging (NIA) (K01AG044439, TR000445, KL2 TR000446)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS/NIH)
- Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR).
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI, R01 HL109388)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Persona Design and Applications
- Social Sciences › Demography › Technology Use by Older Adults
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Keywords
- heart failure, older adults, user-centered design, e-health, health literacy, depression, trust in healthcare providers, health technology use
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Female, Heart Failure, Humans, Male, Medical Informatics, Middle Aged, Telemedicine, Internet, Health Literacy
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