Using intervention mapping to develop a digital self-management programme for people with type 2 diabetes: MyDESMOND

Background: Digital health interventions (DHI) are increasingly becoming integrated in diabetes self-management to improve behaviour. Despite DHIs becoming available to people with chronic conditions, the development strategies and processes undertaken are often not well described. With theoretical frameworks available in the current literature, it is vital that DHIs follow a shared language and communicate a robust development process in a comprehensive way. Objectives: This paper aims to bring a unique perspective to digital development, as it describes the systematic process of developing a digital self-management programme for people with type 2 diabetes, MyDESMOND. Methods: We provide a step-by-step guide, based on the Intervention Mapping (IM) framework to illustrate the process of adapting an existing face-to-face self-management programme (DESMOND) and translating it to a digital platform (MyDESMOND). Overall, this paper describes the four IM steps that were followed in order to develop MyDESMOND. Step 1: establish a planning group and a patient and public involvement group to describe the context of the intervention and programme goals. Step 2: identify objectives and determinants at early design stages to maintain a focus on the strategies adopted. Step 3: generate the programme components underpinned by appropriate psychological theories and models. Step 4: develop the programme content and describe the iterative process of refining the content and format of the digital programme for implementation. Conclusions: This paper concludes with a number of key learnings collated throughout our development process, which we hope other researchers may find useful when developing DHIs in chronic conditions.