JMIR Formative Research

Process evaluations, early results, and feasibility/pilot studies of digital and non-digital interventions

Editor-in-Chief:

Amaryllis Mavragani, PhD, Scientific Editor at JMIR Publications, Canada


Impact Factor 2.1 CiteScore 3.5

JMIR Formative Research (JFR, ISSN 2561-326X) publishes peer-reviewed, openly accessible papers containing results from process evaluations, feasibility/pilot studies and other kinds of formative research and preliminary results. While the original focus was on the design of medical- and health-related research and technology innovations, JMIR Formative Research publishes studies from all areas of medical and health research.

Formative research is research that occurs before a program is designed and implemented, or while a program is being conducted. Formative research can help

  • define and understand populations in need of an intervention or public health program
  • create programs that are specific to the needs of those populations
  • ensure programs are acceptable and feasible to users before launching
  • improve the relationship between users and agencies/research groups
  • demonstrate the feasibility, use, satisfaction with, or problems with a program before large-scale summative evaluation (looking at health outcomes)

Many funding agencies will expect some sort of pilot/feasibility/process evaluation before funding a larger study such as a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT).

Formative research should be an integral part of developing or adapting programs and should be used while the program is ongoing to help refine and improve program activities. Thus, formative evaluation can and should also occur in the form of a process evaluation alongside a summative evaluation such as an RCT.

JMIR Formative Research fills an important gap in the academic journals landscape, as it publishes sound and peer-reviewed formative research that is critical for investigators to apply for further funding, but that is usually not published in outcomes-focused medical journals aiming for impact and generalizability.

Summative evaluations of programs and apps/software that have undergone a thorough formative evaluation before launch have a better chance to be published in high-impact flagship journals; thus, we encourage authors to submit - as a first step - their formative evaluations in JMIR Formative Research (and their evaluation protocols to JMIR Research Protocols). 

JMIR Formative Research is indexed in MEDLINEPubMed, PubMed CentralDOAJ, Scopus, Sherpa/Romeo, EBSCO/EBSCO Essentials, and the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).

JMIR Formative Research received a Journal Impact Factor of 2.1 according to the latest release of the Journal Citation Reports from Clarivate, 2025.

With a CiteScore of 3.5 (2024) JMIR Formative Research is a Q2 journal in the field of Medicine (miscellaneous), according to Scopus data.

Recent Articles

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Research Letter

This study demonstrates that GPT-4o outperforms traditional natural language processing methods in accurately analyzing patient sentiment toward atopic dermatitis treatments on Reddit, enabling more nuanced and reliable extraction of real-world patient perspectives from large-scale social media data.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain the leading global cause of mortality, yet traditional electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation suffers from subjective variability and limited sensitivity to complex pathologies.

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Pilot studies (ehealth)

In 2020, the global prevalence of overweight and obesity was approximately 42%. One of the most common associated conditions is type 2 diabetes mellitus, which had a global prevalence of around 10.5% in 2021. Digital health applications (DiHA), which can be prescribed as certified medical devices in Germany, have been shown to effectively support disease management in patients with overweight and diabetes mellitus. However, little is known about DiHA-prescribing behavior of health care providers (HCPs) specializing in hormones and metabolism or about potential barriers to prescribing these applications.

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Early Results from COVID-19 Studies

Long COVID encompasses a range of health problems that can be highly debilitating. While some research has relied on self-reported measures of symptoms and functioning, few studies have characterized symptoms in relation to behaviors and physiology measured objectively through wearable devices.

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Pilot studies (non-ehealth)

Topical steroid withdrawal (TSW) is a controversial skin condition among healthcare providers due to lack of evidence, but it has an impactful and growing presence on social media. There are few previous reports of healthcare utilisation for symptoms attributed to TSW.

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Formative Evaluation of Non-Ehealth Innovations

Health care professionals must stay updated with the latest guidelines for basic life support (BLS) and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) to effectively assist patients during cardiac emergencies. Since its launch in 2018, the Ghana Heart Initiative has significantly enhanced the skills and knowledge of health care professionals in managing cardiovascular diseases, including cardiac emergencies.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

There is a gap in mental health care among Latino/x and Spanish speaking communities and the care that is available is often difficult to access, lacks cultural nuance, and results in low engagement and satisfaction.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Proactive telecare offers services designed to reduce the occurrence of emergency situations by delivering proactive outbound calls, follow-ups, and providing information and advice. By engaging regularly with users, proactive telecare may foster social connections with older adults and enable the detection of changes in needs. Telecare systems that promote active participation among older adults may also foster feelings of autonomy and self-management. However, more research in this area is needed.

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Pilot studies (ehealth)

HIV self-testing is an important strategy in the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative in the US. To facilitate uptake of HIV self-testing, our study team developed the mLab App, which complements existing self-test options to support the potential for higher uptake of the HIV self-test. Syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection with currently rising prevalence and overlap in risk profiles, could similarly benefit from the advantages of companion diagnostic mobile apps like mLab. Due to the success of the mLab App in promoting HIV self-testing during a randomized controlled trial and the scientific evidence of need for at-home syphilis testing, our team developed the mLab App Plus which supports both HIV and syphilis testing through an image-processing algorithm that incorporates a duplex HIV/syphilis point-of-care test.

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Pilot studies (non-ehealth)

Perinatal Substance Use Disorders (SUD) are frequently comorbid with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), contributing to adverse maternal and child outcomes. Access to integrated mental health support within existing SUD service frameworks is limited, particularly for pregnant and parenting individuals facing socioeconomic and psychosocial instability. Promoting Healthy Families (PHF) is a brief behavioral intervention designed for delivery by case managers serving high-risk perinatal populations with substance use within programs such as Parent Child Assistance Program (PCAP).

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Early Results in Infodemiology and Infoveillance

As a highly lethal circulatory failure syndrome, the pathophysiological mechanisms of shock can lead to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), which significantly increases the demand for intensive care and the length of hospitalisation.There is therefore an urgent need for the public to be informed about health-related issues. In recent years, videos have become a significant medium for health education, and this study aimed to evaluate shock-related videos on video sharing platforms.

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Preprints Open for Peer-Review

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