Design and usability testing of a home digital management and mobile smart wellness platform for patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia

Objective: This study aimed to develop a Digital Urologic Home Care platform and assess its usability for self-management among patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Methods:Participants, including patients and medical staff, were selected through purposive sampling from a tertiary hospital in Guizhou Province. The investigator provided instructions for using the platform, which required participants to continuously log urination patterns, fluid intake, symptom self-assessments, access a disease information database, and engage in remote communication. Following a three-day usage period, the platform's feasibility was evaluated based on effectiveness, efficiency, and subjective satisfaction. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather participants' experiences and feedback, facilitating further adjustments to the platform's content. Results: The study included three healthcare professionals and two patients, aged 24 to 55 years. The System Usability Scale (SUS) yielded an average satisfaction score of 82.8 (SD = 9.7), while the human-computer interface usability questionnaire produced an average score of 70.0 (SD = 8.5), indicating a high level of participant satisfaction with the platform. Conclusion: This platform realizes automatic tracking and analysis of drinking water and urination, enabling continuous analysis and personalization of patients' urination data, patients' mastery of preliminary self-judgment of the degree of the disease and related knowledge, and the realization of remote communication between doctors and patients, which can realize self-monitoring and home digital management of BPH patients after later debugging and updating.