Overcoming challenges in adherence and engagement digital interventions: The development of the ALGEApp for chronic pain management

Despite the growing body of evidence for the effectiveness of clinic-based interventions in increasing daily functioning in individuals with chronic pain, many sufferers still remain untreated or inadequately treated. Digital psychological interventions have been proposed as a means to overcome many of the barriers to face-to-face treatment (e.g., access, mobility, transportation problems) with the aim to improve health care for persons with chronic conditions in the convenience of their own space and time (home care). The main challenge of digital interventions however, is low user engagement and adherence. Focusing on users' engagement during the design phase of a digital intervention development can increase adherence, effectiveness, and acceptability. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how we leveraged a recently proposed four-dimensional framework with evidence-based best practices and recommendations to develop a new digital intervention for chronic pain management, called the ALGEApp. A detailed presentation of how ALGEApp was designed and developed to adopt the recommendations and how this can aid engagement within digital interventions is proposed.