Patients' Perspectives on and Experiences of Home Exercise Programmes Delivered with a Mobile Application

We explored patients' perspectives on home exercise programmes (HEPs) and their experiences using a mobile application designed to facilitate home exercise. Data were generated using qualitative, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 10 participants who were receiving outpatient physiotherapy. Establishing a therapeutic partnership between physiotherapists and patients enabled therapists to customize the HEPs to the patients' lifestyles and preferences. Analysis suggests that using the mobile application improved participants' ability to integrate the HEP into their daily life and was overwhelmingly preferred to traditional paper handouts. The results suggest that efforts to engage patients in HEPs need to take their daily lives into account. To move in this direction, sample exercise prescription questions are offered. Mobile applications do not replace the clinical encounter, but they can be an effective tool and an extension of delivering personalized HEPs in an existing therapeutic partnership.