Join us for a PhD thesis defence of Steinunn Gróa Sigurðardóttir on her thesis: Living with Technology: Digital Mental Health & Patient Flourishing.

Defence committee:

Main Supervisor: 

• Anna Sigríður Islind, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Reykjavik University, Iceland.

Committee members: 

• Oddur Ingimarsson, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland & Landspitali University Hospital, Iceland.
• Helena Vallo Hult, Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics at University West & NU-hospital Group in Sweden.
• Miria Grisot, Professor at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway 

Examiner:

• Claus Bossen, Professor at University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Master of ceremony: Luca Aceto

Abstract:

Healthcare systems everywhere are under pressure, and one of the ways to counteract long waiting lists and low resources is through digitalization and data. Mental healthcare, in particular, has been fighting an uphill battle, bearing more than 30% of the overall disease burden while getting less than 10% of the total healthcare budget. One way to counteract that skewness is to move towards care where patients are empowered to take greater responsibility for their own wellbeing. One way to do that, is by relying on data, collected by the patients and brought into healthcare. The term ‘wearable devices’ functions as an umbrella term for devices that collect physiological data and are used to track information that people can use for their own health monitoring. While there are different types of wearables, including smartwatches, smart jewellery, smart glasses, and smart shoes, smartwatches have gained the most traction by being easily available. Smartwatches are an attractive option to support patients needing to monitor their health metrics, with no exception for patients with serious mental illness. In mental health, monitoring objective data like sleep and movement can be useful, and adding subjective information like feelings can be determining. Subjective data can be derived from mobile applications (app), where patients can log their lived experiences. Changing healthcare systems to incorporate a more patient empowerment-friendly approach introduces new digital health technologies that the often-overworked healthcare professionals then will need to monitor. Therefore, adopting a co-design approach is essential in healthcare platform design, as it enhances the likelihood of the platform being successfully integrated and effectively used by both patients and healthcare professionals. Human flourishing—the development of individuals reaching their highest potential—is an integrated lens throughout this thesis, to truly try to understand the humans involved in this research endeavour and capture the importance of patient flourishing. 

This thesis focuses on how digital mental health platforms can foster patient flourishing by integrating the continuous collection of data into the daily lives of patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. This thesis includes four published papers and focuses on the ways in which patients engage with wearables and apps to support their mental health trajectory and enhance their overall wellbeing. The patients in the study are all receiving care in Landspitali, either for bipolar or schizophrenia. Patients carried a smartwatch for six weeks, continuously collecting data into DataWell. The research contributes to the field of Information Systems (IS), uniting human flourishing and patient empowerment; and unraveling the data work and somatic experiences that patients go through when they contribute to science. Furthermore, this research endeavour outlines a co-design process with patients and healthcare professionals seeking to understand how to effectively co-design platforms that can be used in practice over the course of four years. Finally, the thesis also explores data trends from wearables on a group-level and individual-level basis to further the insights data-driven healthcare can yield over time.