JMIR Formative Research

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

Editor-in-Chief:

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


Impact Factor 2.0 CiteScore 2.7

JMIR Formative Research (JFR, ISSN 2561-326X, Journal Impact Factor™ 2.0 (Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate, 2023)) 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 (Clarivate).

Recent Articles

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Pilot studies (ehealth)

Breast cancer is the world’s most prevalent cancer. Although the 5-year survival rate for breast cancer in the United States is 91%, the stress and uncertainty of survivorship can often lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety. With nearly half of breast cancer survivors living with stress and symptoms of depression and anxiety, there are a significant number of unmet supportive care needs. New and potentially scalable approaches to meeting these supportive care needs are warranted.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Older adults might not use computers due to psychological barriers, environmental barriers such as not owning a computer or lack of Internet access, and health-related barriers such as difficulties with fine motor skills, low cognitive function, or low vision. Given the health benefits of Internet use among older adults, inadequate use of the Internet is an urgent public health issue in many countries.

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Development and Evaluation of Research Methods, Instruments and Tools

As technology continues to shape the landscape of health research, the utilization of online surveys for collecting sexual health information among adolescents and young adults (AYAs) has become increasingly prevalent. However, this shift towards digital platforms brings forth a new set of challenges, particularly the infiltration of automated bots that can compromise data integrity and the reliability of survey results.

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Development and Evaluation of Research Methods, Instruments and Tools

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are important to evidence-based medicine, but the information retrieval and literature screening procedures are burdensome tasks. Rapid Medical Evidence Synthesis (RMES; Deloitte Tohmatsu Risk Advisory LLC) is a software designed to support information retrieval, literature screening, and data extraction for evidence-based medicine.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Recent advancements in virtual reality (VR) and biofeedback (BF) technologies have opened new avenues for breathing training. Breathing training has been suggested as an effective means for mental disorders, but it is difficult to master the technique at the beginning. VR-BF technologies address the problem of breathing, and visualizing breathing may facilitate the learning of breathing training. This study explores the integration of VR and BF to enhance user engagement in self-help breathing training, which is a multifaceted approach encompassing mindful breathing, guided breathing, and breath counting techniques.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Digitalization has profoundly transformed healthcare delivery, especially within primary healthcare, as a crucial avenue for providing accessible, cost-effective care. While eHealth services are frequently highlighted for improving healthcare availability and promoting equality, it is essential to recognize that digitalization can inadvertently exclude individuals who lack the prerequisites to utilize eHealth services, i.e., those with low eHealth literacy. Previous research has identified lower eHealth literacy among older individuals, those with lower educational levels, and those who use the Internet less frequently. However, in a Swedish context, only a few studies have investigated eHealth literacy.

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Pilot studies (ehealth)

The landscape of substance use behavior among young adults has observed rapid changes over time. Intensive longitudinal designs are ideal for examining and intervening in substance use behavior in real time but rely on high participant compliance in the study protocol, representing a significant challenge for researchers.

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Viewpoint

This paper discusses the implementation of the Whole Communities-Whole Health (WCWH) initiative, which is a community-based, longitudinal cohort study. WCWH seeks to better understand the impact of location on family health and child development while also providing support for families participating in the study. Implementing a longitudinal study that is both comprehensive in the data it is collecting and inclusive in the population it is representing is what makes WCWH extremely challenging. This paper highlights the learning process the initiative has gone through to identify effective strategies for implementing this type of research study and work toward building a new model for community-engaged research. Through iterative testing following the Plan-Do-Study-Act model, three main strategies for implementation were identified. These strategies are (1) creating a data collection schedule that balances participant burden and maintains temporality across data types; (2) facilitating multiple opportunities for qualitative and quantitative input from faculty, families, and nonparticipant community members; and (3) establishing an open-door policy for data analysis and interpretation. This paper serves as a guide and provides resources for other researchers wanting to implement a multidisciplinary and community-based cohort study.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

While deep learning classifiers have shown remarkable results in detecting chest X-ray (CXR) pathologies, their adoption in clinical settings is often hampered by the lack of transparency. To bridge this gap, this study introduces the neural prototype tree (NPT), an interpretable image classifier that combines the diagnostic capability of deep learning models and the interpretability of the decision tree for CXR pathology detection.

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Early Results in Infodemiology and Infoveillance

Social media platforms have become home to numerous alternative health groups where people share health information and scientifically unproven treatments. Individuals share not only health information but also health misinformation in alternative health groups on social media. Yet, little research has been carried out to understand members of these groups. This study aims to better understand various characteristics of members in alternative health groups and the association between membership and attitudes toward vaccination and COVID-19 and influenza vaccination–related behaviors.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

With the increasing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into various aspects of daily life, there is a growing interest among designers and practitioners in incorporating AI into their fields. In healthcare domains like art therapy, AI is also becoming a subject of exploration. However, the use of AI in art therapy is still undergoing investigation, with its benefits and challenges being actively explored.

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Preprints Open for Peer-Review

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