Feasibility of a smartphone application for inguinal hernia care: a prospective pilot study

The Inguinal Hernia Application (IHAPP) is designed to overcome current limitations of regular follow-up after inguinal hernia surgery. It has two goals: Minimizing unnecessary healthcare consumption by supplying patient information and facilitating registration of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) by offering simple questionnaires. In this study we evaluated the usability and validity of the app. Patients (≥18 years) scheduled for elective hernia repair were assessed for eligibility. Feasibility of the app was evaluated by measuring patient satisfaction about utilization. Validity (internal consistency and convergent validity) was tested by comparing answers in the app to the scores of the standardized EuraHS-Quality of Life instrument. Furthermore, test-retest reliability was analyzed correlating scores obtained at 6 weeks to outcomes after 44 days (6 weeks and 2 days). During a 3-month period, a total of 100 patients were included. Median age was 56 years and 98% were male. Most respondents (68%) valued the application as a supplementary tool to their treatment. The pre-operative information was reported as useful by 77% and the app was regarded user-friendly by 71%. Patient adherence was mediocre, 47% completed all questionnaires during follow-up. Reliability of the app was considered excellent (α > 0.90) and convergent validity was significant (p = 0.01). The same applies to test-retest reliability (p = 0.01). Our results demonstrate the IHAPP is a useful tool for reliable data registration and serves as patient information platform. However, further improvements are necessary to increase patient compliance in recording PROMs.