Clinical trial NCT04791670: eHealth Usability in Living Kidney Donation
Official title: USABILITY OF AN INTERACTIVE HEALTH TECHNOLOGY FOR KIDNEY LIVING DONORS ASSESSMENT: TOWARDS A STANDARDIZED INFORMED PROCESS
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Conditions: Living Kidney Donation
Keywords: eHealth
value-based healthcare
Lead sponsor: Helsinki University Central Hospital
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University of Oulu
First posted: 2021-03-10
Enrollment: 122
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: All living donor candidates who contacted the living donor transplant coordinator, and were considered initially suitable for kidney donation.

Brief summary: Several web portals for patients are available, but an assessment of their performance is scarce. This is of particular interest among candidates for kidney living donation. A crucial aspect of living donation is to provide standardized information about the risks of the procedure. In 2019 it was launched a personalized digital care path for kidney living candidates, which contains information about the donation process and facilitates the communication between clinicians, transplant coordinators, and patients, enabling telemedicine.

We aim to investigate living donor candidates' experience with the Health Village web portal and the digital care path for living donor candidates. The secondary aim is to investigate their attitude of living donor candidates to eHealth services.

Detailed description: Background. Several web portals for kidney patients are available, but an assessment of their performance is scarce. This is of particular interest among candidates for kidney living donation. A crucial aspect of living donation is to provide standardized information about the risks of the procedure. In Finland, the web portal Health Village contains general information about kidney diseases. In 2019 it was launched a personalized digital care path for kidney living candidates, which contains information about the donation process and facilitates the communication between clinicians, transplant coordinators, and patients, enabling telemedicine. The performance of this eHealth service has not yet been studied.

Objectives. to investigate living donor candidates' experience with the web portal Health Village and the digital care path for living donor candidates. The secondary aim is to investigate their attitude of living donor candidates to eHealth services.

Methods. A prospective cross sectional survey study. Participants will be all kidney donor candidates who have used the digital care path since its implementation in January 2019 up to 1.3.2021 (N=122). The surveys will include general data, the type of electronic devices in possession and the purpose of use. eHealth literacy will be assessed with the eHeals questionnaire. Platform's ease of use will be assessed with the System Usability Scale, and participants´ opinion about the digital path utility with six questions. These items will be answered with a Likert-scale. Finally, we added an open question for qualitative analysis.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Living donor candidates from Helsinki area, from 2019 onwards

Exclusion Criteria:

* Living donor candidates from other areas of the country
* non-Finnish speakers

Primary outcomes:
measure: Patient´s experience
timeFrame: 4 months
measure: Patient´s e-Health literature
timeFrame: 4 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Gender differences
timeFrame: 4 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
affiliation: Helsinki University Central Hospital
name: Fernanda Ortiz, PhD, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Ortiz F, Giunti G. Usability assessment of an interactive health technology for kidney living donors: protocol for a prospective cross-sectional survey. BMJ Open. 2022 Jan 3;12(1):e051166. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-051166.