Digital health tools such as apps are being increasingly used by women to access pregnancy-related information. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigated: (i) pregnant women’s current usage of digital health tools to self-monitor and (ii) their interest in theoretical pregnancy app features (a direct patient-to-healthcare-professional communication tool and a body measurement tool). Using a mixed methods approach, 108 pregnant women were surveyed and 15 currently or recently pregnant women were interviewed online. We found that pregnant women used digital health tools to mainly access pregnancy related information and less so to self-monitor. Most participants were interested and enthusiastic about a patient-to-healthcare-professional communication tool. About half of the survey participants (49%) felt comfortable using a body measurement tool to monitor their body parts and 80% of interview participants were interested in using the body measurement to track leg/ankle swelling. Participants also shared additional pregnancy app features that they thought would be beneficial such as a “Digital Wallet” and a desire for a holistic pregnancy app that allowed for more continuous and personalised care. This study highlights the gaps and needs of pregnant women and should inform all stakeholders designing pregnancy digital healthcare. This study offers a unique insight into the needs of pregnant women during a very particular and unique period in human history.

Digital health tools, such as apps, have the potential to promote healthy behaviours, especially self-monitoring, which can facilitate pregnancy management and reduce the risk of associated pregnancy health conditions. While pregnancy apps are popular amongst pregnant women, there is limited information about the overall quality of their content or self-monitoring tools and the number of behaviour change techniques (BCTs) that they include. The aim of this study was thus to assess the quality of pregnancy apps for self-monitoring, and their usage of BCTs. We identified pregnancy apps by web scraping the most popular global apps for self-monitoring in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store available in Australia. The app quality was evaluated using the scorecard approach and the inclusion of BCTs was evaluated using the ABACUS tool. We identified 31 pregnancy apps that met our eligibility criteria. We found that pregnancy apps tended to score the highest in the domains of ‘cost and time’, ‘usability’, and ‘technical’, and lowest on ‘clinical’ and ‘end-user requirements’. Additionally, the majority of apps contained minimal BCTs. Based on our findings, we propose a digital health scorecard visualisation that would break down app quality criteria and present them in a more accessible way to clinicians and pregnant users. We conclude that these findings highlight the shortcomings of available commercial pregnancy apps and the utility of a digital health scorecard visualisation that would empower users to make more informed decisions about which apps are the most appropriate for their needs.

Introduction: Solutions to support disease self-management and health-related behavior changes require a deep understanding of patient experiences, needs, and challenges across the care journey. Journey mapping (JM) and service blueprinting (SB) are valuable tools for visualizing user experiences and system processes over time. This scoping review explores how JM/SBs have been applied to design digitally enabled interventions targeting health-related behaviors among patients and the public. Methods: The JBI reviewer manual was used to guide the review. Studies were sourced from Embase, Psych Info, PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus. Inclusion criteria required studies to describe how JM/SBs informed the design of a digitally enabled health innovation that aimed to impact health or health care-related behaviors of patients or the public. A two-level screening process and iterative data extraction were applied. Results: A total of 28 studies met the inclusion criteria, with a majority published between 2019 and 2024. The JM/SBs rarely used behavioral science theory and were structured, organized, and presented in diverse ways. Most studies designed their digital health behavior change innovations by using JM/SB to identify relevant innovation touchpoints across the patient journey. Patients frequently participated in the digital health behavior change innovation design process, with JM/SBs often serving as sensemaking tools. Innovations tended to address multifaceted health service problems through multimodal, digitally enabled solutions. Conclusions: JM/SBs are emerging as versatile tools to help digital health innovations to conduct user research, engage diverse partners, identify complex problems, and ideate creative solutions. However, limited integration of behavioral science theory indicates an area for future exploration.