# The Views of Healthcare Professionals on iFall, a Smartphone Application for Falls Reporting in Parkinson’s Disease: A Qualitative Study

## TL;DR

Healthcare professionals in the UK reviewed a Parkinson’s-specific smartphone app for tracking falls and found it simple and useful, though improvements and implementation challenges were noted.

## Contribution

A qualitative evaluation of a Parkinson’s-specific smartphone app for falls reporting, co-developed by people with Parkinson’s, from healthcare professionals’ perspectives.

## Key findings

- The iFall app was viewed as clear, simple, and potentially useful in clinical and research settings.
- Participants suggested enhancements like voice recognition and more detailed fall reporting options.
- Implementation challenges such as IT integration were identified.

## Abstract

Background: Accurate falls reporting is important in the management of Parkinson’s disease. One way in which to improve accuracy is by providing a smartphone app to log fall events. This qualitative study sought to gain insights from healthcare professionals based in the United Kingdom on a novel smartphone application co-developed by people with Parkinson’s (PwP) disease for falls reporting. Research Methods: A purposive sample of n=11 healthcare professionals with expertise in Parkinson’s were recruited to take part in a focus group to explore their views on the smartphone app. Framework analysis was utilised to interpret the data. Results: Participants discussed the applications role in clinical practice, research, and provided recommendations for future improvements. Within the overarching theme of implementation of iFall in clinical and research practice, three subthemes emerged: (1) applicability to clinical practice, (2) the future of iFall in research and (3) future developments. The application was viewed positively, exhibiting potential to address important contemporary issues within falls reporting and research, whilst being clear, simple and easy to use. Implementation challenges of the application, such as IT integration were highlighted, while enhancements such as voice recognition were suggested. Conclusions: Incorporating suggestions from healthcare professionals and piloting of the application with PwP will increase the likelihood of successful implementation of the iFall app into clinical practice and research.

For people with Parkinson’s, there is an increased chance of falling. Falling can cause injury, anxiety, pain and a worsening of quality of life. Being able to track falls is important for healthcare professionals to be able to help support people with Parkinson’s. Measuring falls can be difficult. Often paper diaries are used, but this can be difficult and time consuming for people with Parkinson’s to complete. A smartphone application has been developed by people with Parkinson’s to help record falls. We wanted to understand what healthcare professionals who work with people with Parkinson’s thought of the application and how it could help inform clinical practice and research. We also wanted to know how it could be improved further. We used three focus groups, with eleven healthcare professionals, and they provided their thoughts on the application. The healthcare professionals felt that the application was very clear and simple to use and had potential to help clinician’s and researchers improve how falls are recorded. They highlighted areas that could be improved, such as adding more options to add more details about the falls. They also highlighted some obstacles to putting the application into practice, which we will use to improve how we can use the application in the future.