Table 3.
Frequency of codes relating to the advantages, disadvantages, and concerns of using DTS
| Code | Representative quotations (translated from French) |
n = 99 n (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Potential advantages | ||
| No idea of any advantage | I#21 « I didn’t find any.» | 14 (14%) |
| Remote asthma management | 47 (47%) | |
| Decreased number of travels | I#6 “We wouldn't have to make the route; we wouldn't have to wake up early this morning” | 36 (36%) |
| Decreased number of visits (follow-up/emergency) | I#40 “Fewer visits to the doctor in a year” | 7 (7%) |
| Flexibility of adjustments in time and space | I#95 “You can do it whenever you want and where you want” | 5 (5%) |
| Decreased missed school days | I#30 “I don’t miss any day of school” | 4 (4%) |
| Virtual doctor at home | I#22 “There is a sort of doctor in our home” | 2 (2%) |
| Assistance with daily asthma management | 27 (27%) | |
| Adjustment of medication | I#1 “If we decide to decrease the treatment and I start to have symptoms, it could tell me if I should increase it (the treatment) or wait a little longer” | 12 (12%) |
| Adherence support | I#12 “It could send parents < your child hasn't taken their medication > and it could be taken more often” | 11 (11%) |
| Integration of environmental factors | I#15 “It could tell us what we want to know, the allergies, the viruses that are circulating around us”; I#58 “Just to have the air quality” | 7 (7%) |
| Support for the management of asthma attacks | I#25 “It could be practical in case of an asthma attack, to know what to do” | 3 (3%) |
| Personalised management | I#14 “If we have this application, we can change my treatment depending on what I do” | 2 (2%) |
| Management in real time | 26 (26%) | |
| Immediacy, rapidity of the system | I#10 “I would say the rapidity” | 10 (10%) |
| Continuous health monitoring | I#22 “It looks after my health very often” | 10 (10%) |
| Real-time physician alert | I#52 “And if I have an asthma attack, it notifies the doctor directly” | 8 (8%) |
| Better performance than physicians | I#4 “It would never be wrong somehow if it's well programmed”; I#13 “It’s going to be smarter”; I#49 “There are things that the artificial intelligence sees that the doctor may not” | 9 (9%) |
| Decreased dependence on the physician | 8 (8%) | |
| Visit to the physician only if necessary | I#101 “That way I don't have to go to the physician for my asthma when I don't have anything, it will warn me and tell me when my asthma is unwell and then I will go to the physician” | 6 (6%) |
| Autonomy from the physician | I#14 “If we have this application, we can change my treatment without having to go to the doctor” | 2 (2%) |
| Potential disadvantages and concerns | ||
| No idea of any disadvantage | I#7 “No disadvantage” | 43 (43%) |
| No concern | I#6 “No, no concern” | 54 (55%) |
| Technical issues related to the embedded AI | 52 (53%) | |
| Risk of bug resulting from programming error | I#3 “It might get confused and take a basic treatment that might work, but by mistake or miscalculation might forget a detail that could ruin everything”; I#88 “Maybe the AI will bug and tell me to take a medication that I shouldn’t take” | 38 (38%) |
| Risk of a bug resulting from a system failure, virus, or hacking | I#11 “It would be nice, but it would be a shame if it broke down”; I#16 “If it crashes sometimes, can this software have viruses inside or should we install an antivirus application?”; I#42 “It can be hacked”; I#67 “Yes, as it’s digitised, it can still crash, if there’s an internet outage, if it’s running over the internet, if the servers are too overloaded, it can crash too” | 17 (17%) |
| Risk of bug (without precision) | I#28 “Yes because sometimes it can bug and do weird stuff” | 7 (7%) |
| Loss of humanity | 24 (24%) | |
| Difficulty in trusting the embedded AI | I#5 “I wouldn't be 100% reassured because an app can't be trusted 100%” | 15 (15%) |
| Human supervision required | I#4 “I still think decisions should be validated by a physician” | 7 (7%) |
| Loss of human touch | I#58 “There will always be a small difference between having a real consultation and a program, there is something physical that you don’t have” | 6 (6%) |
| Lower performance than physicians | 18 (18%) | |
| Physicians are better at handling the unexpected | I#10 “I would prefer a human because the human could see other symptoms that are not known to the app”.; I#14 “I think the doctor is better, the robot is programmed to know this, this, this, and may not look for the right thing” | 15 (15%) |
| System unable to replace the physician | I#2 “It can be a help, but it can’t be in place of the doctor” | 5 (5%) |
| Uselessness of the system | I#33 “I think it’s going to be useless” | 3 (3%) |
| Risks related to the personal data needed to run the DT system | I#10 “It can be an invasion of my privacy in terms of health, it takes data, and we don’t really know what the software does with it”; I#16 “Are we sure that the robot could keep the information confidential, that it wouldn’t leak? Imagine there is your address, and someone takes it” | 11 (11%) |
| Risks related to the connected objects required | 5 (5%) | |
| Risk of physical harm | I#67 “Considering that being exposed to waves is not recommended, if you have to carry it with you all the time, it can have an impact on your health in the long term” | 3 (3%) |
| Risk of fragility | I#12 “The disadvantage is that if it's not protected enough it breaks in the pocket” | 2 (2%) |
| Negative impact of the DTS on the development of autonomy | I#62 “Well then, if you're too dependent on the application, that means you're not responsible, you're not able to take care of yourself” | 3 (3%) |
Categories are not mutually exclusive
AI artificial intelligence, I# interview no