AUTHOR=Isaacs Krystyna R. , Bajracharya Elina , Taylor Shantae , Chang Katie , Washio Yukiko , Parker Trenee , Paul David A. , Ma Tony X. 

TITLE=Usability and acceptability testing of a Plan of Safe Care in a mobile health platform

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1182630

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1182630

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Women who are pregnant or parenting while recovering from substance use disorder (SUD) are at risk for insufficient recovery support. With the federal mandate, implementation has been left to each state for the POSC, leading to challenges in providing comprehensive coordination of care and in meeting federal reporting requirements. 
This research tests the usability and acceptability of a POSC platform, called SAFE4BOTH, which combined a mobile health (mHealth) app for use by mothers with substance use disorder (MSUD) with a web-based case management system for use by stakeholders to reduce the issue of fragmented postnatal maternal and infant care. The platform was designed to enable access to services, improve reporting task workflow, and assist in improving interactions between mothers and service providers.
 After applying a user-centered design approach, the usability and acceptability of the SAFE4BOTH platform were evaluated. The evaluation involved four staff members from a Medication for Addiction Treatment clinic (comprising of three case management workers and one peer counselor), four state employees of the Delaware Division of Family Services, and 20 mothers with substance use disorder (MSUD) who had delivered infants in need of a POSC. 
Features tested in the SAFE4BOTH platform included a secure, web-based POSC, a contingency management-based reward system, a microlearning library, resources locator, chat messaging, videoconferencing, contact management, a QR code reader, appointment compliance using geofencing, and enhanced calendar functionalities. Family services and treatment center staff accessed SAFE4BOTH from their laptops or tablets, and MSUD accessed SAFE4BOTH from their phones. Family services staff, treatment center staff, and MSUD participants rated SAFE4BOTH as usable and acceptable with average System Usability Scale scores of 68.1 (SD 8.5), 92.5 (SD 11.73), and 78.4 (SD 12.5) (respectively).  
The platform was judged both usable and acceptable by all three target populations (family services staff treatment center staff, and MSUD users). Further studies are planned to explore the efficacy of longitudinally supporting the mother’s recovery and the infant’s healthy development.