Stakeholder field-testing of amnioDex, a person-centred decision support intervention for amniocentesis

Objectives: To field-test a patient-targeted Decision Support Intervention (DESI) for amniocentesis (amnioDex) and make progress towards elaborating concrete guidelines for field-testing complex interventions. Methods: Participants used incremental prototypes of amnioDex and answered a questionnaire or took part in a semi-structured interview. The field test was divided into three independent phases: (1) field-testing with lay users; (2) field-testing with health professionals and (3) field-testing with pregnant women considering an amniocentesis. Results: AmnioDex version 1 was tested with 10 lay users, who identified several navigation and lay-out difficulties. All errors were addressed to create amnioDex version 2, subsequently tested with 9 health professionals. Most health professionals found the website easy to navigate and pleasantly structured with appropriate images, useful video clips and well laid out web-pages. AmnioDex version 3 was revised according to these comments and tested with 15 pregnant women. The majority of pregnant women responded positively to the design, graphic-based elements (e.g., video clips, diagrams, images) and informational content of amnioDex. Conclusions: AmnioDex was judged helpful by most users. Field-testing appears essential in ensuring that the DESI content, design and usability is acceptable to both users and health professionals prior to evaluation and implementation