Experiences of Wheelchair Users With Spinal Cord Injury With Self-Tracking and Commercial Self-Tracking Technology (“In Our World, Calories Are Very Important”): Qualitative Interview Study

Abstract

Background: Commercial wearable and mobile wellness apps and devices have become increasingly affordable and ubiquitous. One of their aims is to assist the individual wearing them in adopting a healthier lifestyle through tracking and visualizing their data. Some of these devices and apps have a wheelchair mode that indicates that they are designed for different types of bodies (eg, wheelchair users with spinal cord injury [SCI]). However, research focuses mainly on designing and developing new condition-specific self-tracking technology, whereas the experiences of wheelchair users with SCI using self-tracking technology remain underexplored. Objective: The objectives of this study were to (1) provide a comprehensive overview of the literature in the field of self-tracking technology and wheelchair users (as a basis for the study), (2) present the self-tracking needs of wheelchair users with SCI, and (3) present their experiences and use of commercial self-tracking technology. Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with wheelchair users with SCI to understand their experiences with self-tracking and self-tracking technologies, their self-tracking needs, and how they changed before and after the injury. The interviews were thematically analyzed using an inductive approach. Results: Our findings comprised three themes: (1) being a wheelchair user with SCI, (2) reasons for self-tracking, and (3) experiences with self-tracking technologies and tools. The last theme comprised 3 subthemes: self-tracking technology use, trust in self-tracking technology, and calorie tracking. Conclusions: In the Discussion section, we present how our findings relate to the literature and discuss the lack of trust in commercial self-tracking technologies regarding calorie tracking, as well as the role of wheelchair users with SCI in the design of commercial self-tracking technology.