healthcare system. Over the next 10 years, diagnosis and survivorship rates of colorectal cancer are expected to rise due to better detection methods and treatment innovations. Therefore, Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) is being explored as a telehealth solution, but it faces challenges in addressing the multifacet and subjective nature of mental health. Current mental health assessments are often biased and limited by a Western, individualistic perspective. This creates an opportunity to design a more inclusive, collective RPM strategy that involves a patient’s social environment, especially their spouse, as dyadic coping (shared stress regulation) is more effective than individual coping. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to investigate ‘how to design a strategy to remotely monitor and contextualize mental health by leveraging romantic couples’ collective and contextual data’.

This thesis indicated that social interaction is essential in maintaining relationship satisfaction, crucial in enhancing effective dyadic coping. A data-enabled design approach was applied to design a custom remote research tool-kit for seamlessly and compliant data collection, and contextualizing social interaction through visualizing and co-analyzing the collected data. User research was conducted over a period of 7 days (where 2-3 days were dedicated to data collection) with three Dutch, romantic couples aged between 55 and 75 years old, living together. Thematic analysis resulted in design guidelines, along with identified strengths, limitations, and future research opportunities regarding social interaction interpretation and contextualization. This thesis contributes to the design and research community by offering insights into romantic couples' social interactions and providing guidelines for creating holistic, collective RPM strategies for telehealth innovations, beneficial for cancer survivorship follow-up care.