Usability and Feasibility Testing of an Atrial Fibrillation Educational Website with Patients Referred to an Atrial...

The purpose of this study was to design, usability test, and explore the feasibility of a web-based educational platform/intervention for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) as part of their virtual AF care.

Participants were patients attending a specialized AF clinic. The multiple mixed-methods design included website design, think-aloud usability test, 1-month unstructured pre-testing analysis using Google Analytics, follow-up interviews, and a non-randomized one-group feasibility test using pre/post online surveys and Google Analytics.

Usability testing participants (n = 2) guided adjustments for improving navigation. Pre-testing participants' (n = 9) website activity averaged four sessions (SD = 2.6) at 10 (SD 8) minutes per session during a 1-month study period. In the feasibility test, 30 patients referred to AF specialty clinic care completed the baseline survey, and 20 of these completed the 6-month follow-up survey. A total of 19 patients accessed the website over the 6 months, and all 30 participants were sent email prompts containing information from the website. Health-related quality of life, treatment satisfaction, household activity, and AF knowledge scores were higher at follow-up than baseline. There was an overall downward trend in self-reported healthcare utilization at follow-up.

Access to a credible education website for patients with AF has great potential to complement virtual and hybrid models of care.