The Problem

Women with psychiatric conditions frequently experience predictable symptom worsening tied to menstrual cycle phases, particularly during the luteal and perimenstrual periods. Research shows that between 40 and 66 percent of women with mood, anxiety, and attention disorders report clinically meaningful premenstrual symptom exacerbation. Despite this, no validated, user-tested digital tool exists to help patients and clinicians track this pattern together in routine outpatient care. Before such a tool can be evaluated for clinical impact, it must first be shown to be usable, acceptable, and feasible for real-world patients and providers.

The Project

This project is a usability and feasibility evaluation of MindFlo, a digital prototype that integrates daily menstrual cycle phase data with structured mental health symptom monitoring, developed for use in outpatient psychiatric settings. This DNP scholarly project does not test clinical outcomes. Instead, it asks a foundational question: is MindFlo usable, understandable, and practical for the patients and providers who would use it day to day. Participant feedback, gathered through a validated usability instrument and structured survey items, will directly inform refinement of the app's design, workflow, and features ahead of any future clinical evaluation.

The project is grounded in a systematic review of 15 studies examining luteal phase symptom worsening across psychiatric diagnoses. That evidence base informed what MindFlo tracks (mood, anxiety, sleep, and cognitive symptoms) but the current pilot is about testing the tool itself, not testing whether it changes clinical outcomes.

Project Aims

The aim of this pilot is to evaluate the usability and feasibility of MindFlo among outpatient psychiatric patients using a validated usability instrument (System Usability Scale), supplemented with structured feedback on specific app features, tracking burden, and perceived clinical relevance. Results will identify what is working, what is confusing or burdensome, and what should change before MindFlo is considered ready for a larger-scale clinical evaluation.

Conceptual Framework

This project is guided by the Nonadoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread, and Sustainability (NASSS) framework, which evaluates the factors that influence whether a health technology is successfully adopted and sustained in clinical practice. The NASSS framework shapes how MindFlo was designed, how this usability pilot is structured, and how barriers to adoption are being identified early, before any claims about clinical benefit are made.

Why It Matters

Digital tools are increasingly proposed for cycle-informed psychiatric care, but few are built with structured user feedback before wider deployment. Testing usability and feasibility first, rather than assuming a tool will work simply because the underlying science is sound, protects both patients and clinicians from adopting a product that looks good in theory but fails in practice. This pilot is the necessary first step toward determining whether MindFlo, or a tool like it, is worth evaluating for clinical impact down the road.