Albertans4HealthResearch.ca

Co-designing a Digital Health App to Support Postpartum Women

University of Alberta – Department of Psychiatry

 

Background

Many women in Alberta describe the postpartum period as overwhelming. After birth, health services often focus on the baby, while mothers struggle with fatigue, mood changes, pain, sleep problems, and worries about their baby’s health. At the same time, many new mothers already use phones, apps, and sometimes smartwatches to look for information or track their health.

Our research team is developing a digital health app for postpartum women that could bring together simple health-tracking (for example, sleep, activity, mood) with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that can answer common questions and direct women to trusted resources. We want this app to be designed with mothers, not just for them. Patient partners will help us make sure the questions we ask, the app features we build, and the way we share results are all grounded in real postpartum experiences.

This work aims to improve how postpartum women in Alberta access information, feel supported, and monitor their physical and mental health after birth.

 

Roles and Responsibilities

We are looking for postpartum mothers in Alberta to join our team as patient partners. Patient partners will:

- Join a small advisory working group (online, via Zoom)

- Help refine the priorities for our co-design workshops with postpartum women

- Review and provide feedback on: recruitment materials, workshop activities and discussion guides for co-design workshops, and insights and early ideas for mock-ups of the digital health app

- Advise on how to make our study more inclusive, accessible, and relevant to diverse postpartum experiences (for example, rural vs. urban, different cultural backgrounds, different levels of digital literacy)

- Help interpret study findings from a lived-experience perspective.

This is an online opportunity. No research or technical background is required; we will provide orientation to the project and ongoing support.

Training and resources on patient-oriented research and co-design will be offered as needed.

 

Time Commitment

Project start: February 2026

Project end: July 2026

 

Expected engagement for patient partners in the co-design phase

• 3–4 online meetings (about 60–90 minutes each)
• occasional email review of short documents (e.g., draft co-design workshop questions) between meetings, if partners are willing

Scheduling will be flexible and arranged around patient partners’ availability (daytime or evening).

Expected engagement for patient partners in the data collection phase
Patient partners will be asked to help co-facilitate up to 4 online co-design workshops, each about 90–120 minutes. All sessions will be held via Zoom at times that work for all participants.

Compensation/Reimbursement

Patient partners will be offered an honorarium (e.g., electronic gift cards) for their time and contributions, in line with Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit (AbSPORU) and University of Alberta patient engagement compensation guidelines.

As this is a fully online opportunity, no travel is required

 

For more information or to express interest
Viktoriia (Vika) Kurkova
Email Kurkova@ualberta.ca
Phone/Text (587) 334-6419