Clinician characteristics and perceptions related to use of the PE (Prolonged Exposure) coach mobile app

Abstract

Using smartphones in the provision of evidence-based psychotherapy holds tremendous potential for enhancing care. Mental health clinicians' perceptions of smartphone-delivered interventions will affect their decision to adopt these promising innovations. As a follow-up to our early study (Kuhn et al., 2014), here we investigated mental health clinicians' (N = 271) use of a patient-facing smartphone app for prolonged exposure (PE) therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder, called PE Coach. A Web-based survey assessed clinicians' perceptions of the app using diffusion of innovations constructs. Half of the sample practicing PE in the past year reported using PE Coach, with 93.6% intending to continue using it. For clinicians who did not use PE Coach, 77.6% intended to use it in the future. Perceptions of PE Coach were generally favorable regarding its relative advantage over current practices, compatibility with clinicians' values and needs, complexity, trialability, and observability. Younger clinicians (<40 years) had more favorable perceptions of the app's perceived complexity than did older clinicians (≥40 years). Clinicians owning smartphones, relative to those not, had more favorable perceptions of compatibility, complexity, and trialability. PE Coach users, relative to nonusers, had more favorable perceptions across all constructs, except trialability. Finally, after controlling for number of PE patients seen in the past year, clinician age and perceived complexity of the app significantly predicted use of PE Coach. These findings suggest that clinicians are using PE Coach and have favorable perceptions of it, but enhanced dissemination efforts may be needed to increase adoption for certain clinician groups.