Journal of medical Internet research
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
EditorialHarnessing the social web for health and wellness: issues for research and knowledge translation.
Social media is a powerful, rapid, and popular way of communication amongst people around the world. How can health professionals and patients use this strategy to achieve optimal disease management and prevention and attainment of wellness? An interdisciplinary group at University of British Columbia, supported by a grant from UBC Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies, conducted a research workshop in February 2013 to explore what is known and yet to be researched in using social media for nurturing the growth of virtual communities of people for health and wellness. ⋯ In addition, a public forum for the general public, which attracted over 195 live participants, over 100 participants via Web casting, 1004 tweets, and 1,124,886 impressions following the #HCSMForum hash tag on Twitter, demonstrated the keen interest of the general public in this topic. Key concepts were captured in JMIR publications in this issue, and future directions, including research, knowledge translation approaches, and strategic partnerships of interdisciplinary researchers with policy makers and industries emerged from the workshop proceedings.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
Review Meta AnalysisComputer-delivered and web-based interventions to improve depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being of university students: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Depression and anxiety are common mental health difficulties experienced by university students and can impair academic and social functioning. Students are limited in seeking help from professionals. As university students are highly connected to digital technologies, Web-based and computer-delivered interventions could be used to improve students' mental health. The effectiveness of these intervention types requires investigation to identify whether these are viable prevention strategies for university students. ⋯ The findings suggest Web-based and computer-delivered interventions can be effective in improving students' depression, anxiety, and stress outcomes when compared to inactive controls, but some caution is needed when compared to other trial arms and methodological issues were noticeable. Interventions need to be trialed on more heterogeneous student samples and would benefit from user evaluation. Future trials should address methodological considerations to improve reporting of trial quality and address post-intervention skewed data.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialSupporting self-care for families of children with eczema with a Web-based intervention plus health care professional support: pilot randomized controlled trial.
Childhood eczema, or childhood atopic dermatitis, causes significant distress to children and their families through sleep disturbance and itch. The main cause of treatment failure is nonuse of prescribed treatments. ⋯ Our pilot trial demonstrated the potential for greater improvements in POEM scores in both website intervention groups and that a full-scale trial is feasible. Such a trial would quantify the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of this intervention to determine whether it should be widely promoted to families of children with newly diagnosed eczema. In this study population, HCP support was not strongly valued by participants and did not lead to better outcomes or website use than use of the Web-based intervention alone.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
ReviewEffectiveness of eHealth interventions and information needs in palliative care: a systematic literature review.
One of the key components in palliative care is communication. eHealth technologies can be an effective way to support communications among participants in the process of palliative care. However, it is unclear to what extent information technology has been established in this field. ⋯ There is limited evidence around the effectiveness of eHealth interventions for palliative care patients, caregivers, and health care professionals. Focused research on information needs and high-quality clinical trials to assess their effectiveness are needed.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
ReviewMobile applications for diabetics: a systematic review and expert-based usability evaluation considering the special requirements of diabetes patients age 50 years or older.
A multitude of mhealth (mobile health) apps have been developed in recent years to support effective self-management of patients with diabetes mellitus type 1 or 2. ⋯ A vast number of diabetes apps already exist, but the majority offer similar functionalities and combine only one to two functions in one app. Patients and physicians alike should be involved in the app development process to a greater extent. We expect that the data transmission of health parameters to physicians will gain more importance in future applications. The usability of diabetes apps for patients aged 50 or older was moderate to good. But this result applied mainly to apps offering a small range of functions. Multifunctional apps performed considerably worse in terms of usability. Moreover, the presence of a documentation or analysis function resulted in significantly lower usability scores. The operability of accessibility features for diabetes apps was quite limited, except for the feature "screen reader".