This industrial PhD project, that is conducted in collaboration with the digital health agency Daman, explores affective and emotional features of supporting people in coping with chronic illnesses such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) facilitated by digital health technologies.
Finding out that one has a chronic disease and learning to live with this condition is a life-changing experience characterised by a great amount of affective and emotional uncertainty. The PhD project aims to take this understanding as a starting point for assisting patients in developing empowerment and long-lasting coping strategies through affective interactions with mobile apps. The key question to be explored in this project is how an affect-driven approach to designing healthcare technologies can improve the life quality of patients diagnosed with RA.
Credits
PHD student: Lena Kühn
Supervisors: Jonas Fritsch (ITU), Jens Jakobsen (Daman)