Digilego for Peripartum Depression: A Novel Patient-Facing Digital Health Instantiation

Digital health technologies offer unique opportunities to improve health outcomes for mental health conditions such as peripartum depression (PPD), a disorder that affects approximately 10-15% of women in the U.S. every year. In this paper, we present the adaption of a digital technology development framework, Digilego, in the context of PPD. Methods include mapping of the Behavior Intervention Technology (BIT) model and the Patient Engagement Framework (PEF) to translate patient needs captured through focus groups. This informs formative development and implementation of digital health features for optimal patient engagement in PPD screening and management. Results show an array ofPPD-specific Digilego blocks ("My Diary", "Mom Talk", "My Care", "Library", "How am I doing today?"). Initial evaluation results from comparative market analysis indicate that our proposed platform offers advantageous technology aspects. Limitations and future work in areas of interdisciplinary care coordination and patient engagement optimization are discussed.