Exploring how health professionals create eHealth and mHealth education interventions

This qualitative study aimed at exploring how health professionals use instructional design principles to create health education interventions. A purposeful sample of 12 participants was selected, using criterion and snowballing sampling strategies. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data, which were later analyzed through constant comparison method. Planning materials and artifacts were also collected and analyzed to corroborate evidence from the interviews. Although the findings revealed wide variability, they did however indicate that the participants incorporated essential instructional design elements in their interventions, namely, analysis, design and evaluation. Moreover, even though none of the participants were trained in instructional design, all seemed to employ a heuristic approach. Suggested implications for practice are (a) the design of an instructional design guidebook, (b) the establishment of a community of practice, and (c) a repository for health education learning objects to help support these health professionals in their work. Suggested implications for further research are (a) the investigation of the decision-making process of health professionals as they create their interventions to shed light on their heuristic approach and (b) the examination of the variable design approaches shown by the participants to explain its impact on the quality and effectiveness of the interventions.