Improving physical activity (PA) through eHealth can promote health of people with severe mental illness (SMI). Yet, existing interventions are time consuming and are based predominantly on cognitive models. These cognitively underpinned interventions suffer from the behaviour-intention gap and rely on a high level of cognitive skills such as attention, goal setting and writing, which people with SMI often do not fully possess. Therefore, complementary interventions that focus on automatic processes instead, such as self-control training (SCT), may be necessary to promote PA in this vulnerable population.
The goal of this study is to use participatory design to explore the perspectives of people with SMI on self-control training, to ultimately design usable, engaging, and effective digital SCT specifically for people with SMI.
6-8 psychiatric inpatients will be enrolled in a series of co-creative design workshops. Each workshop guides patients through creative exercises that explore their perceptions of self-control in daily life (workshop 1), their experiences with eHealth (workshop 2), and their preferences for the design and functionality of a self-control training app (workshop 3). All workshops will be recorded and transcribed, and the resulting data will be analysed according to qualitative content analysis to derive major themes that reflect requirements for a successful SCT app from the patients’ perspective.Â