Designing voice interfaces to support mindfulness-based pain management.
Digital health – January 01, 2023
Source: PubMed
Summary
Chronic pain impacts around 20% of U.S. adults, prompting a search for non-addictive management strategies like mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). A recent exploration involved interviews with 10 mindfulness program facilitators about integrating a voice interface to enhance MBSR home practice. Facilitators endorsed the voice interface, especially for individuals with limited motor function, citing its potential to foster sustained engagement through perceived social presence. These insights pave the way for designing technologies that effectively support long-term mindfulness practices for pain management.
Abstract
Chronic pain is a critical public health issue affecting approximately 20% of the adult population in the United States. Given the opioid crisis, there has been an urgent focus on non-addictive pain management methods including mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Prior work has successfully used MBSR for pain management. However, ensuring longitudinal engagement in MBSR practices remains a serious challenge. In this work, we explore the utility of a voice interface to support MBSR home practice. We interviewed 10 mindfulness program facilitators to understand how such a technology might fit in the context of the MBSR class and identify potential usability issues with our prototype. We then used directed content analysis to identify key themes and sub-themes within the interview data. Our findings show that facilitators supported the use of the voice interface for MBSR, particularly for individuals with limited motor function. Facilitators also highlighted the unique affordances of voice interfaces, including perceived social presence, to support sustained engagement. We demonstrate the acceptability of a voice interface to support home practice for MBSR participants among trained mindfulness facilitators. Based on our findings, we outline design recommendations for technologies aiming to provide longitudinal support for mindfulness-based interventions. Future work should further these efforts toward making non-addictive pain management interventions accessible and efficacious for a wide audience of users.