Assessing the uptake, engagement, and safety of a self-management app, COPD.Pal®, for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: a pilot study

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a widespread condition that accounts for 3 million deaths worldwide annually. Despite being extensive healthcare users, people with COPD (PwCOPD) only spend approximately 1% of their time with a healthcare professional. The rest of the time, they are encouraged to self-manage their condition. To encourage better self-management, Bond Digital Health have created a mobile phone app called COPD.Pal® that helps PwCOPD keep track of their condition. This pilot study aimed to assess the safety, engagement, and early efficacy of the app. 25 PwCOPD were recruited and given COPD.Pal® for 6-weeks. Healthcare usage, self-management knowledge, app engagement, dyspnoea, and health-related quality of life were measured at baseline and at 6-weeks. A feedback questionnaire was also collected at follow-up. T-tests investigated whether differences between the time points were evident in the data. No statistically significant differences were found between the time points for any of the variables measured. Average app engagement was 31.8 days with 84% using COPD.Pal® for 20 or more days during the 6-weeks. 89% of participants stated they would use the app regularly after the study, with 56% stating they’d use it long-term. This study determined that a digital, self-management app would be engaged with and early results indicate that the safety is non-inferior to standard care. Although self-management knowledge remained unaffected by app use, this study provided useful insights regarding how to improve this aspect. This represents one of few studies which involve end-users at an early stage of intervention development, an important strength of the research.