eHealth vs. Infection: participatory development of persuasive eHealth to support safe care

Antimicrobial resistance is a big global threat for public health. Many of the measures that are taken to tackle this problem – such as Anitbiotic Stewardship Programs (ASPs) – require healthcare professionals and patients to change their attitudes and/or behavior. This is not easily achieved, since negative consequences of negligence or incorrect behavior are not immediately visible, there are little incentives to change behavior and individual healthcare providers are not always aware of how they (can) contribute to the problem. The use of eHealth technology is promising for dealing with this kind of problems. The CeHRes Roadmap offers a framework for the development of such technology. It calls for a participatory development process, in which attention is not only paid to the technology, but also to its users (e.g. physicians) and the context within which it is used (e.g. nursing homes): a socio-technical approach. Besides that, the technology itself can, by applying persuasive design, stimulate and motivate its users to change their behavior and attitudes. The research that is described in this thesis was performed by the Center for eHealth and Wellbeing Research of the University of Twente, within the INTERREG IVa EurSafety Health-net project. This cross-border project aims to improve patient safety via the prevention and control of antimicrobial resistance. This thesis shows how a participatory development process and persuasive design of eHealth technology can contribute to the success of ASPs. Additionally, a method is described and evaluated to measure perceived persuasiveness of eHealth technology: the Perceived Persuasiveness Questionnaire