JMIR Formative Research

Depression, anxiety, and stress-related difficulties represent a major global health burden. Online psychological therapy has emerged as a promising approach to increasing access to care, yet evidence from routine, real-world clinical settings, particularly for services delivered without standardized treatment protocols, remains limited.

Remote vital sign monitoring of acute hospital at home (aHAH) patients is recommended in policy without clear guidance on implementation. While such monitoring has the potential to improve patient care, there is limited evidence for its feasibility and acceptability.

Mobile health technologies offer scalable opportunities to support home-based exercise programs. However, most commercially available apps are not tailored to individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) and have rarely been evaluated for usability and implementation outcomes in this population.

In clinical settings, clinicians’ context-specific trust in AI is associated with individual factors. This is particularly relevant in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) screening, where diagnostic criteria are complex, heterogeneous, and inherently uncertain. Although some AI systems demonstrate high sensitivity, clinicians are not always convinced of their utility. Therefore, examining potential biases in context-specific trust and achieving well-calibrated trust are critical.

For endurance athletes, resting heart rate (RHR) is a well-known indicator of training load, physiological status, and readiness for upcoming training. Predicting the following day’s RHR would enable athletes and coaches to optimize training plans and make timely load adjustments.

Palliative care improves patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL) by delivering specialty-level management for cancer symptoms. Digital symptom monitoring programs (SMPs) improve patients’ HRQoL through early symptom identification during cancer care. Through complementary approaches, SMPs and palliative care align with symptom management theory by linking the patient-reported symptom experience with clinician recommendations for symptom management to improve health outcomes for patients with serious illness. While both SMPs and palliative care reduce health care use and improve survival through detection and treatment of cancer symptoms, few studies have attempted to integrate palliative care into SMPs for cancer symptom management.

Health literacy (HL) is a crucial determinant of population health; however, disparities persist in multilingual settings. In South Tyrol, Italy, where German- and Italian-speaking populations coexist within a unified health care system, HL disparities may reflect differences in language, culture, and digital engagement.

Remote, scalable cognitive assessment could improve detection and longitudinal monitoring of age-related cognitive change, but few studies have validated comprehensive digital neuropsychological batteries administered entirely at home.

Chronic pain (CP) is a complex and prevalent public health condition that significantly impacts physical functioning, psychological well-being, and quality of life. Traditional biomedical treatments often provide limited relief, highlighting the need for integrative approaches. Biopsychosocial interventions, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), have shown promise in improving pain-related outcomes by targeting cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes associated with CP.

Smoking prevalence is disproportionately high among individuals with mental disorders, who also show reduced cessation success, suggesting that current cessation interventions may not fully address their specific needs. A barrier to smoking cessation is the fear that quitting may worsen mental health, yet little is known about how individuals with mental disorders experience guideline-conform cessation treatments, which may address such concerns.

Smart home technologies (SHTs) encompass internet-connected interfaces, sensors, monitors, devices, and appliances, which are networked together to allow for automation. They can facilitate tasks, such as taking medication or issuing fall alerts, and can control the home environment, such as by automating lighting. Their widespread use comes with concerns about power imbalances between users, technology companies, marketers, and state actors regarding data collection, its use and disclosure, and security issues, such as the potential for data breaches. SHT acceptance and adoption are shaped by user attitudes and trust, so understanding these factors is critical. A scoping review conducted by several authors of this paper explored user perceptions of SHTs and identified 4 key themes related to user attitudes: privacy concerns, knowledge of data collection, perceived risks and benefits, and perceived safety. Of the included studies in the review, none explored Canadian SHT users’ attitudes. Thus, little is known about how Canadians perceive and understand the privacy, data collection, and safety elements of their SHTs. Given Canada’s unique demographic diversity and distinct context, examining Canadian perspectives is necessary for advancing this body of research.

Loneliness is recognized as a global health threat. Older adults are vulnerable to loneliness due to life changes common in old age. While individual risk factors for loneliness in old age are well-documented, contextual factors are scarcely explored, such as digitalization. Rapid digitalization underscores the need to explore the long-term association between the use of digital devices and loneliness.