Introduction
People living with multiple long-term conditions (multimorbidity) (MLTC-M) experience an accumulating combination of different symptoms. It has been suggested that these symptoms can be ...tracked longitudinally using consumer technology, such as smartphones and wearable devices.
Aim
The aim of this study was to investigate longitudinal user engagement with a smartwatch application, collecting survey questions and active tasks over 90 days, in people living with MLTC-M.
Methods
‘Watch Your Steps’ was a prospective observational study, administering multiple questions and active tasks over 90 days. Adults with more than one clinician-diagnosed long-term conditions were loaned Fossil® Sport smartwatches, pre-loaded with the study app. Around 20 questions were prompted per day.
Daily completion rates were calculated to describe engagement patterns over time, and to explore how these varied by patient characteristics and question type.
Results
Fifty three people with MLTC-M took part in the study. Around half were male ( = 26; 49%) and the majority had a white ethnic background (n = 45; 85%). About a third of participants engaged with the smartwatch app nearly every day. The overall completion rate of symptom questions was 45% inter-quartile range (IQR 23–67%) across all study participants. Older patients and those with greater MLTC-M were more engaged, although engagement was not significantly different between genders.
Conclusion
It was feasible for people living with MLTC-M to report multiple symptoms per day over 3 months. User engagement appeared as good as other mobile health studies that recruited people with single health conditions, despite the higher daily data entry burden.
Data quality is core theme of programme's performance assessment and many organizations do not have any data quality improvement strategy, wherein data quality dimensions and data quality assessment ...framework are important constituents. As there is limited published research about the data quality specifics that are relevant to the context of Pakistan's Tuberculosis control programme, this study aims at identifying the applicable data quality dimensions by using the 'fitness-for-purpose' perspective.
Forty-two respondents pooled a total of 473 years of professional experience, out of which 223 years (47%) were in TB control related programmes. Based on the responses against 11 practical cases, adopted from the routine recording and reporting system of Pakistan's TB control programme (real identities of patient were masked), completeness, accuracy, consistency, vagueness, uniqueness and timeliness are the applicable data quality dimensions relevant to the programme's context, i.e. work settings and field of practice.
Based on a 'fitness-for-purpose' approach to data quality, this study used a test-based approach to measure management's perspective and identified data quality dimensions pertinent to the programme and country specific requirements. Implementation of a data quality improvement strategy and achieving enhanced data quality would greatly help organizations in promoting data use for informed decision making.
Background
As management of chronic pain continues to be suboptimal, there is a need for tools that support frequent, longitudinal pain self-reporting to improve our understanding of pain. This study ...aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of daily pain self-reporting using a smartphone-based pain manikin.
Methods
For this prospective feasibility study, we recruited adults with lived experience of painful musculoskeletal condition. They were asked to complete daily pain self-reports via an app for 30 days. We assessed feasibility by calculating pain report completion levels, and investigated differences in completion levels between subgroups. We assessed acceptability via an end-of-study questionnaire, which we analysed descriptively.
Results
Of the 104 participants, the majority were female (n = 87; 84%), aged 45-64 (n = 59; 57%), and of white ethnic background (n = 89; 86%). The mean completion levels was 21 (± 7.7) pain self-reports. People who were not working (odds ratio (OR) = 1.84; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.52-2.23) were more likely, and people living in less deprived areas (OR = 0.77; 95% CI, 0.62-0.97) and of non-white ethnicity (OR = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.36-0.57) were less likely to complete pain self-reports than their employed, more deprived and white counterparts, respectively. Of the 96 participants completing the end-of-study questionnaire, almost all participants agreed that it was easy to complete a pain drawing (n = 89; 93%).
Conclusion
It is feasible and acceptable to self–report pain using a smartphone–based manikin over a month. For its wider adoption for pain self–reporting, the feasibility and acceptability should be further explored among people with diverse socio–economic and ethnic backgrounds.
During the last two decades, critical enquiry into the nature of race has begun to enter the philosophical main-stream. The same period has also witnessed the emergence of an increasingly visible ...discourse about the nature of infor-mation within a diverse range of popular and academic settings. What is yet to emerge, however, is engagement at the interface of the two disciplines – critical race theory and the philosophy of information. In this paper, I shall attempt to con-tribute towards the emergence of such a field of enquiry by using a reflexive hermeneutic (or interpretative) approach to analyze the concept of race from an information-theoretical perspective, while reflexively analyzing the concept of informa-tion from a critical race-theoretical perspective. In order to facilitate a more concrete enquiry, the concept of information formulated by cyberneticist Gregory Bateson and the concept of race formulated by philosopher Charles W Mills will be placed at the centre of analysis. Crucially, both concepts can be shown to have a connection to the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, thereby justifying their selection as topics of examination on critical reflexive hermeneutic grounds.
We propose a new framework to improve the engagement of medical practitioners in a planned e-training platform for the successful identification and effective management of presumptive cases of ...tuberculosis (TB) in Pakistan. Our work is aligned with the World Health Organization’s TB-DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short-course) strategy for promoting the effective management of tuberculosis. We start by presenting previous work done at Mercy Corps Pakistan for training medical practitioners, then present the results of a recent survey we administered to a random sample of medical practitioners in Pakistan to learn about their requirements and readiness to embrace a new e-training platform and methodology. Informed by feedback from the survey, we formulated a detailed requirement analysis of the five key learning areas (or phases) that we believe are fundamental to the success of a TB e-training platform. Moreover, survey results revealed that an on-spot, on-demand, and competency-based learning tool can potentially improve the engagement of medical practitioners in the process. Building on the insights gained from the survey, we finally describe our initial UX (user experience) prototypes for phase 1, which corresponds to the identification of presumptive tuberculosis cases.
The private healthcare providers (PHCP) are believed to improve access to healthcare services in public-private mix (PPM) projects, as they are considered first point of contact for healthcare. The ...purpose of this study was to determine the satisfaction level of tuberculosis (TB) patients.
A questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study was carried out during November and December 2017 for 572 under-treatment patients registered with PHCPs in the PPM project. Lot quality assurance sampling technique was used to randomly select 19 districts from a sample frame of 75 districts. In each selected district, the data collector retrieved a TB register of 8 months (January-August 2017) and systematically selected patients by fixed periodic interval. SPSS version 24.0 (IBM Corp, Amonk, NY, USA) was used to analyze the data.
This study included 53% (n = 301) males and 47% (n = 271) females, with mean age of 38 years (SD, ±18). Almost half of the participants were illiterate (51%, n = 289), and 64% (n = 365) were non-earning members of the family. In practice, most of the participants visit private providers (71%, n = 407), including private hospitals/clinics (44%) and traditional practitioners (27%; n = 153); 55% of participants visited their current doctor because of the clinic's proximity to their residence. Of the participants, 82% (
= 469) were satisfied with TB care services and 85% (
= 488) said that they would recommend this clinic to others.
: PHCPs are preferred providers for individuals, which is consistent with findings of other studies. Though they are satisfied with TB care and services, interventions should be introduced to reduce the financial burden on the patient. Partnering PHCP is a way forward to ensure universal health coverage and better health outcomes of the population.
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