uhealth

BACKGROUND: Coronary heart disease is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Secondary prevention is essential, as it reduces the risk of further coronary events. Mobile health (mHealth) technology could become a useful tool to improve lifestyles. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of an mHealth intervention on people with coronary heart disease who received percutaneous coronary intervention. Improvements in lifestyle regarding diet, physical activity, and smoking; level of knowledge of a healthy lifestyle and the control of cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs); and therapeutic adherence and quality of life were analyzed...

BACKGROUND: Wearable sensors are increasingly being explored in healthcare, including in cancer care, for their potential in continuously monitoring patients. Despite their growing adoption, significant challenges remain in the quality and consistency of data collected from wearable sensors. In particular, preprocessing pipelines to clean and standardize raw data have not been fully optimized. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review of preprocessing techniques employed on wearable sensor data to ensure their readiness for artificial intelligence/machine learning ("AI/ML-ready") applications...

BACKGROUND: In patients with gout, suboptimal management refers to a lack of disease knowledge, low treatment compliance, and inadequate control of serum uric acid (SUA) levels. Several studies have shown that continuous care is recommended for disease management in patients with gout. However, in China, the continuous care model commonly used for patients with gout requires significant labor and time costs, and its efficiency and coverage remain low. Mobile health (mHealth) may be able to address these issues...

BACKGROUND: Accurately assessing an individual's diet is vital in the management of personal nutrition and in the study of the effect of diet on health. Despite its importance, the tools available for dietary assessment remain either too imprecise, expensive, or burdensome for clinical or research use. Image-based methods offer a potential new tool to improve the reliability and accessibility of dietary assessment. Though promising, image-based methods are sensitive to adherence, as images cannot be captured from meals that have already been consumed...

BACKGROUND: In the past few years, a burgeoning interest has emerged in applying gamification to promote desired health behaviors. However, little is known about the effectiveness of such applications in the HIV prevention and care continuum among men who have sex with men (MSM). OBJECTIVE: This study aims to summarize and evaluate research on the effectiveness of gamification on the HIV prevention and care continuum, including HIV-testing promotion; condomless anal sex (CAS) reduction; and uptake of and adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), postexposure prophylaxis (PEP), and antiretroviral therapy (ART)...

BACKGROUND: The opioid crisis continues to pose significant challenges to global public health, necessitating the development of novel interventions to support individuals in managing their substance use and preventing overdose-related deaths. Mobile health (mHealth), as a promising platform for addressing opioid use disorder, requires a comprehensive understanding of user perspectives to minimize barriers to care and optimize the benefits of mHealth interventions. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to synthesize qualitative insights into opioid users' acceptability and perceived efficacy of mHealth and wearable technologies for opioid use disorder...

BACKGROUND: Telemedicine technology is a rapidly developing field that shows immense potential for improving medical services. In palliative care, informal caregivers assume the primary responsibility in patient care and often face challenges such as increased physical and mental stress and declining health. In such cases, telemedicine interventions can provide support and improve their health outcomes. However, research findings regarding the use of telemedicine among informal caregivers are controversial, and the efficacy of telemedicine remains unclear...

BACKGROUND: Promoting physical activity (PA) and healthy feeding (HF) is crucial to address the alarming increase in obesity rates in developing countries. Leveraging mobile phones for behavior change communication to encourage infant PA and promote HF is particularly significant within the Mexican context. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore the effectiveness and feasibility of mHealth interventions aimed at promoting PA and HF among primary caregivers (PCs) of Mexican children under the age of 5 years...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/44406.].

BACKGROUND: The effectiveness of timely medication, physical activity (PA), a healthy diet, and blood pressure (BP) monitoring for promoting health outcomes and behavioral changes among patients with hypertension is supported by a substantial amount of literature, with "adherence" playing a pivotal role. Nevertheless, there is a lack of consistent evidence regarding whether digital interventions can improve adherence to healthy behaviors among individuals with hypertension. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to develop a health behavioral digital intervention for hypertensive patients (HBDIHP) based on an intelligent health promotion system and WeChat following the behavior change wheel (BCW) theory and digital micro-intervention care (DMIC) model and assess its efficacy in controlling BP and improving healthy behavior adherence...

BACKGROUND: Wearable devices, mobile technologies, and their combination have been accepted into clinical use to better assess the physical fitness and quality of life of patients and as preventive measures. Usability is pivotal for overcoming constraints and gaining users' acceptance of technology such as wearables and their companion mobile health (mHealth) apps. However, owing to limitations in design and evaluation, interactive wearables and mHealth apps have often been restricted from their full potential...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/45942.].

BACKGROUND: Despite being the gold-standard method for objectively assessing sleep, polysomnography (PSG) faces several limitations as it is expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive; requires various equipment and technical expertise; and is impractical for long-term or in-home use. Consumer wrist-worn wearables are able to monitor sleep parameters and thus could be used as an alternative for PSG. Consequently, wearables gained immense popularity over the past few years, but their accuracy has been a major concern...

BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disabling disorder associated with high interference in people's lives. However, patients with OCD either do not seek help or delay seeking help. Research suggests that this could be explained by poor mental health literacy about the disorder and the associated stigma. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a mental health mobile app, esTOCma, developed to improve knowledge about OCD and its treatment, increase help-seeking intention, and reduce stigmatizing attitudes and social distance associated with OCD...

BACKGROUND: Hypertension significantly impacts the well-being and health of individuals globally. Hypertension management apps (HMAs) have been shown to assist patients in controlling blood pressure (BP), with their efficacy validated in clinical trials. However, the utilization of HMAs continues to be suboptimal. Presently, there is a dearth of real-world research based on big data and exploratory mining that compares Chinese and American HMAs. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to systematically gather HMAs and their user reviews from both China and the United States...

BACKGROUND: Patient-reported outcome and experience measures can play a critical role in providing patient-centered and value-based healthcare to a growing population of chronically ill patients. Value-based telemedicine platforms such as the Naveta initiative may facilitate the effective integration of these tools into healthcare systems. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the response rate to electronic patient-reported outcome measures (ePROMs) and electronic patient-reported experience measures (ePREMs) among patients participating in the Naveta telemedicine initiative, its correlations with sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, and the evolution of the rates over time...

BACKGROUND: Up to 50% of people in low- and middle-income countries do not receive the rehabilitation they require. Telerehabilitation has the potential to improve access to neurorehabilitation services especially in low- and middle-income countries. Although there are reports of the barriers and facilitators to telerehabilitation in such settings, almost all are anecdotal. Furthermore, family or carers have a significant influence on the adoption and success of telerehabilitation, but their views have not been reported...

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of chronic wounds is predicted to increase within the aging populations in industrialized countries. Patients experience significant distress due to pain, wound secretions, and the resulting immobilization. As the number of wounds continues to rise, their adequate care becomes increasingly costly in terms of health care resources worldwide. eHealth support systems are being increasingly integrated into patient care. However, to date, no systematic analysis of such apps for chronic wounds has been published...

BACKGROUND: An increasing number of people are using vapes (e-cigarettes), and with growing evidence of associated harms, there is a need for acceptable cessation support and interventions. Smartphone apps for health and well-being have increased in popularity and use. Limited published literature assesses the potential of apps to support vaping cessation. OBJECTIVE: A systematic search of vaping cessation apps currently available in Australia for iOS and Android platforms was conducted...

BACKGROUND: The success of mobile apps in improving the lifestyle of patients with noncommunicable diseases through self-management interventions is contingent upon the emerging growth in this field. While users of mobile health (mHealth) apps continue to grow in number, little is known about the quality of available apps that provide self-management for common noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the availability, characteristics, and quality of mHealth apps for common noncommunicable disease health management that included dietary aspects (based on the developer's description), as well as their features for promoting health outcomes and self-monitoring...