Consensus recommendations for usability and acceptability of mobile health autism screening tools

Mobile health (mHealth; online phone or tablet-based) screening tools for autism are being increasingly used by parents, health care, and educational providers. However, it is unclear whether mHealth autism screening will improve the inequalities in autism or further help individuals already advantaged in autism care. To try to improve equity in mHealth autism screening, we conducted a modified Delphi consensus panel process with 14 panelists who were medical providers, parents, tool developers, and educational providers. Panelists participated in three asynchronous online voting rounds followed by online discussions. Panelists were provided a preliminary list of 28 recommendations for autism-screening tools that were compiled from previous qualitative interviews in the larger project. In each round, panelists were asked to vote for up to 10 recommendations from the preliminary list and discuss the voting results. After the third round of asynchronous voting, a final round of discussion with all the panelists was held live through Zoom to discuss the final asynchronous voting results. All voting and discussion took place on an online app called Slack. Voting and discussion yielded 19 recommendations in five conceptual categories: transparency, equity, access, product design and user experience, and development process. Tools adhering to these recommendations may increase equitable service use after screening.Lay abstractFamilies may use information online to learn more about autism. Families, health care, and educational providers may use online tools like checklists or web apps to screen for autism (measure whether a young child has autism symptoms or behaviors). However, we do not know whether the online autism-screening tools can be easily used by families and providers. It is possible that families who are culturally diverse, have lower education, or have lower income have trouble using online autism-screening tools. We conducted an online consensus panel with medical/educational providers, parents, and tool developers, asking them to vote and have discussions on suggestions for online screening tools for autism. The voting and discussions resulted in 19 suggestions for changes to make the tools easier to use. The top recommendations included directly linking to sources of information about autism, reading level that is less than or equal to fifth grade, and focusing on the diverse behavior/needs/strengths associated with autism.