Commercial nutrition apps are increasingly used to evaluate diet. Evaluating the comparative validity of nutrient data from commercial nutrition app databases is important to determine the merits of ...using these apps for dietary assessment.
Nutrient data from four commercial nutrition apps were compared with a research-based food database, Nutrition Data System for Research (NDSR) (version 2017).
Comparative validation study.
An investigator identified the 50 most frequently consumed foods (22% of total reported foods) from a weight-loss study in Chicago, IL, during 2017. Nutrient data were compared between four commercial databases with NDSR.
Comparative validity of energy, macronutrients, and other nutrient data (ie, total sugars, fiber, saturated fat, cholesterol, calcium, and sodium).
Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) evaluated agreement between commercial databases with the NDSR for foods that were primarily un- and minimally processed and by the three most frequently consumed food groups. Bland-Altman plots determined degree of bias for calories between commercial databases and NDSR.
This study observed excellent agreement between NDSR and CalorieKing (ICC range = 0.90 to 1.00). Compared with NDSR, agreement for Lose It! and MyFitnessPal ranged from good to excellent (ICC range = 0.89 to 1.00), with the exception of fiber in MyFitnessPal (ICC = 0.67). Fitbit showed the widest variability with NDSR (ICC range = 0.52 to 0.98). When evaluating by food group, Fitbit had poor agreement for all food groups, with the lowest agreement observed for fiber within the vegetable group (ICC = 0.16). Bland-Altman plots confirmed ICC energy results but also found that MyFitnessPal had the poorest agreement to NDSR (mean 8.35 SD 133.31 kcal) for all food items.
Degree of agreement varied by commercial nutrition app. CalorieKing and Lose It! had mostly excellent agreement with NDSR for all investigated nutrients. Fitbit showed the widest variability in agreement with NDSR for most nutrients, which may reflect how well the app can accurately capture diet.
The potential of mobile health applications to improve healthcare outcomes and accessibility, particularly among older individuals, is significant. However, challenges such as small fonts, complex ...navigation, and unintuitive design hinder their effective use by older adults. Addressing these issues is crucial for ensuring equitable access to healthcare. This study aims to identify the unique difficulties older people face with mobile health apps and explore innovative ways to enhance usability and accessibility. Through design analysis and user testing, the research seeks to address these obstacles and propose solutions. The study examines usability issues and suggests a practical framework that integrates assistive technology and dynamic procurement processes to ensure the availability of user-friendly apps. Emphasizing the importance of user testing with older adults, the research offers actionable insights for improving the overall experience of seniors using mobile health apps. The framework provides practical solutions for resolving these problems, ultimately improving seniors' overall experience utilizing the system.
Background
The concept of mobile health has attracted considerable attention across the globe, as it provides both healthcare professionals and patients with a distinct means of information and ...resources.
Aim
This study was conducted with the aim of utilising mobile health (mHealth) applications by nurses and presenting a scenario of how and why they are utilised.
Methods
This study was a scoping review. Data collection was carried out by searching the related keywords in Google Scholar, Scopus, Cochrane, EMBASE, Ovid, and PubMed databases from January 2000 to March 2019.
Results
Regarding the reasons for using mobile applications by nurses, five objectives were identified, including learning and knowledge enhancement, treatment and improvement of the patient care process, diagnostic process, data and patient management, and health promotion. Effective factors in the nurses’ use of mobile applications were categorised into eight themes: ease of use, usefulness, security and confidentiality, feasibility and functionality, design and use—interface, effectiveness, infrastructure, versatility, and social norms.
Conclusions
Mobile health applications have considerable potential in enhancing nurses’ professional activities. This study contributes to both nursing and health policy by providing a scenario of how and why nurses use mobile health applications.
Textual Emotion Detection (TED) is a rapidly growing area in Natural Language Processing (NLP) that aims to detect emotions expressed through text. In this paper, we provide a review of the latest ...research and development in TED as applied in health and medicine. We focus on medical and non-medical data types, use cases, and methods where TED has been integral in supporting decision-making. The application of NLP technologies in health, and particularly TED, requires high confidence that these technologies and technology-aided treatment will first, do no harm. Therefore, this review also aims to assess the accuracy of TED systems and provide an update on the state of the technology. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines were used in this review. With a specific focus on the identification of different human emotions in text, the more general sentiment analysis studies that only recognize the polarity of text were excluded. A total of 66 papers met the inclusion criteria. This review found that TED in health and medicine is mainly used in the detection of depression, suicidal ideation, and the mental status of patients with asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and diabetes with major data sources of social media, healthcare services, and counseling centers. Approximately, 44% of the research in the domain is related to COVID-19, investigating the public health response to vaccinations and the emotional response of the public. In most cases, deep learning-based NLP techniques were found to be preferred over other methods due to their superior performance. Developing methods for implementing and evaluating dimensional emotional models, resolving annotation challenges by utilizing health-related lexicons, and using deep learning techniques for multi-faceted and real-time applications were found to be among the main avenues for further development of TED applications in health.
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Background: The use of health applications (apps) in smartphones increased exponentially during COVID-19. This study was conducted the with the aim to understand the factors that determine the ...consumer’s perception of health apps in smartphones towards telemedicine during COVID-19 and to test any relation between these factors and consumers towards Telemedicine in India. Methods: This questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted from July 2021 to December 2021 in India. Out of 600 selected participants, 594 responded and in that 535 valid questionnaires were measured. The questionnaire consists of close-ended responses, with the first part consisting of demographic information, the second part consisting of questions associated with consumers’ perceptions and the third part kept for suggestions and complaints. The questionnaire was distributed using digital platforms via WhatsApp or email. A 5-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly agree’ (5) to strongly disagree (1) was used to record responses. Results: Results revealed a high response rate of 90%. The highest score was obtained for the question assessing the satisfaction of the users towards health apps 1175 = 500 (agree-4) + 675 (Strongly agree-5). The interface of the app scored very low, showing disagreement (514) with app functionality, and was the most common disadvantage as perceived by patients. The mean scores of reliabilities and vicinity of health services; efficacy and comprehensive health information; development and improvement of health apps and telemedicine (3.24, 3.18, 3.62, 3.49), respectively, show the difference in attraction existing between groups. There is a strong positive correlation between the variables except for efficacy and comprehensive information about health and Telemedicine (−0.249), development and improvement of health apps, and reliability and vicinity of health services (−0.344) which have a negative correlation. Conclusions: The findings of this survey reveal a positive outlook of health apps toward telemedicine. This research also found a strong forecaster of the consumer’s perception of health apps in smartphones towards telemedicine. In the broad spectrum, the future of health app affiliates for telemedicine is better affected by the consumer’s perception of health app efficacy. This study suggests that health app marketers develop more innovative apps to increase usage and help consumers.
Using drone aircraft to deliver healthcare and other health-related services is a relatively new application of this technology in North America. For health service providers, drones represent a ...feasible means to increase their efficiency and ability to provide services to individuals, especially those in difficult to reach locations. This paper presents the results of a scoping review of the research literature to determine how drones are used for healthcare and health-related services in North America, and how such applications account for human operating and machine design factors. Data were collected from PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore using a block search protocol that combined 13 synonyms for “drone” and eight broad terms capturing healthcare and health-related services. Four-thousand-six-hundred-and-sixty-five documents were retrieved, and following a title, abstract, and full-text screening procedure completed by all authors, 29 documents were retained for analysis through an inductive coding process. Overall, findings indicate that drones may represent a financially feasible means to promote healthcare and health-related service accessibility for those in difficult-to-reach areas; however, further work is required to fully understand the costs to healthcare organizations and the communities they serve.
There is a need for a straightforward, accessible and accurate pediatric test for color vision deficiency (CVD). We present and evaluate
ColourSpot,
a self-administered, gamified and color calibrated ...tablet-based app, which diagnoses CVD from age 4. Children tap colored targets with saturations that are altered adaptively along the three dichromatic confusion lines. Two cohorts (Total,
N
= 772; Discovery,
N
= 236; Validation,
N
= 536) of 4–7-year-old boys were screened using the Ishihara test for Unlettered Persons and the Neitz Test of Color Vision.
ColourSpot
was evaluated by testing any child who made an error on the Ishihara Unlettered test alongside a randomly selected control group who made no errors. Psychometric functions were fit to the data and “threshold ratios” were calculated as the ratio of tritan to protan or deutan thresholds. Based on the threshold ratios derived using an optimal fitting procedure that best categorized children in the discovery cohort,
ColourSpot
showed a sensitivity of 1.00 and a specificity of 0.97 for classifying CVD against the Ishihara Unlettered in the independent validation cohort.
ColourSpot
was also able to categorize individuals with ambiguous results on the Ishihara Unlettered. Compared to the Ishihara Unlettered, the Neitz Test generated an unacceptably high level of false positives.
ColourSpot
is an accurate test for CVD, which could be used by anyone to diagnose CVD in children from the start of their education.
ColourSpot
could also have a wider impact: its interface could be adapted for measuring other aspects of children’s visual performance.
Wearable smart health applications aim to continuously monitor critical physiological parameters without disrupting patients' daily activities, such as giving a blood sample for lab analysis. For ...example, the partial pressure of arterial carbon dioxide, the critical indicator of ventilation efficacy reflecting the respiratory and acid-base status of the human body, is measured invasively from the arteries. Therefore, it can momentarily be monitored in a clinical setting when the arterial blood sample is taken. Although a noninvasive surrogate method for estimating the partial pressure of arterial carbon dioxide exists (i.e., transcutaneous carbon dioxide monitoring), it is primarily limited to intensive care units and comes in the form of a large bedside device. Nevertheless, recent advancements in the luminescence sensing field have enabled a promising technology that can be incorporated into a wearable device for the continuous and remote monitoring of ventilation efficacy. In this review, we examine existing and nascent techniques for sensing transcutaneous carbon dioxide and highlight novel wearable transcutaneous carbon dioxide monitors by comparing their performance with the traditional bedside counterparts. We also discuss future directions of transcutaneous carbon dioxide monitoring in next-generation smart health applications.
Zusammenfassung
Hintergrund
Internetbasierte Interventionen (IBIs) zur Behandlung von Depressionen zeigen in internationalen Metaanalysen positive Effekte. Es ist jedoch unklar, ob diese Effekte sich ...auch auf die in Deutschland verfügbaren IBIs erstrecken. Ziel dieser Metaanalyse war es, die unmittelbaren Effekte und die Langzeiteffekte der in Deutschland frei oder als sog. digitale Gesundheitsanwendungen (DiGA) auf Rezept verfügbaren IBIs abzuschätzen und die Wirkstärke von DiGA und frei verfügbaren IBIs zu vergleichen.
Methode
Es erfolgte eine systematische Literaturrecherche und Random-effects-Metaanalyse (Präregistrierung: INPLASY202250070). Berücksichtigt wurden RCTs von in Deutschland frei verfügbaren oder als DiGA erhältlichen IBIs an Erwachsenen mit erhöhter depressiver Symptomatik im Vergleich zu aktiven und inaktiven Kontrollen zum Erhebungszeitpunkt im Mai 2022.
Ergebnisse
Es wurden sechs Interventionen identifiziert: COGITO, deprexis, iFightDepression, moodgym, Novego und Selfapy. Die gepoolte Effektstärke von insgesamt 28 Studien mit 13.413 Teilnehmer*innen entsprach einem Effekt von Cohen’s
d
= 0,42, (95 %-KonfidenzintervallKI: 0,31; 0,54,
I
2
= 81 %). Die Analyse der Langzeiteffekte zeigte eine geringere Effektstärke von
d
= 0,29, (95 %-KI: 0,21; 0,37,
I
2
= 22 %,
n
= 10). Subgruppenanalysen deuteten auf eine mögliche Überlegenheit der drei im DiGA-Verzeichnis gelisteten Interventionen (
d
= 0,56, 95 %-KI: 0,38; 0,74,
I
2
= 83 %,
n
= 15) im Vergleich zu den drei frei verfügbaren Interventionen (
d
= 0,24, 95 %-KI: 0,14; 0,33,
I
2
= 44 %,
n
= 13) hin (
p
=
0,002
).
Schlussfolgerung
Die in Deutschland verfügbaren IBIs für depressive Störungen sind wirksam und können daher in der therapeutischen Versorgung von Menschen mit depressiven Störungen eingesetzt werden. Möglicherweise sind nicht alle Interventionen gleich gut wirksam.
Several disparities exist for Black mothers during the postpartum period, including but not limited to increased maternal mortality and morbidity rates, decreased access to care, and limited access ...to resources. Given the racial discrepancies in attention to postpartum care, coupled with the critical importance of the postpartum period for preventing adverse maternal health outcomes, research is warranted to explore how mobile health (mHealth) applications may help to alleviate maternal health disparities by optimizing postpartum care and addressing barriers to care for postpartum Black women. Thus, this review examines the perceptions of mHealth applications and their utility in health outcomes among postpartum Black women.
We undertook a comprehensive literature search using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. We included peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2022 that were written in English, utilized mHealth as a primary intervention, and focused on postpartum health and access to resources, primarily among Black women in the United States.
A total of eight articles were included in our synthesis, encompassing mobile phone-based interventions for Black women. Cultural tailoring was included in five studies. Interventions that incorporated tailored content and fostered interactions reported high rates of follow-up.
Tailored mHealth interventions can effectively promote behavior change and improve health care outcomes for Black women. However, there is a critical need for more research to assess user engagement and retention and whether these improvements indicate long-term sustainability.
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