JMIR Formative Research

The project “Personalised Integrated Care Promoting Quality of Life for Older People” aimed to develop an integrated care system based on information and communication technology to support older people living with Parkinson’s disease or Dementia disease. One module focuses on physical activity (PA) recommendations.

Patients using buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) or long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain are at risk for poor outcomes if care is interrupted. Both treatments are highly regulated, with prepandemic requirements for in-person care. COVID-19 may have resulted in barriers to accessing in-person care through disruptions in care delivery. However, there were also opportunities for improved access to telemedicine visits through policy changes.

Experience Sampling Methods (ESM) have been used in clinical research to collect data on emotional and behavioural states in real life contexts among different populations. Although the use of ESM in mental health has increased, it has not been applied to larger samples of young people in disadvantaged urban settings.

The number of studies on the use of smart wearables has increased dramatically in recent years. However, aspects including personal safety and fashion perspectives of wearable devices have not yet been adequately addressed in the literature. There have been debates regarding the potential health risks and fashionability of using wearable devices. Regardless of the actual impact of such devices, these aspects may influence users’ perceptions toward the purchase and use of wearable technology.

Opportunities for neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) training are limited for medical and nursing students due to patient safety concerns and the complexities of neonatal care. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted clinical training opportunities, further underscoring the need for alternative educational tools that can provide immersive and practical learning experiences. Serious games have garnered attention as potential tools for medical education; however, few are designed to simulate the complete NICU environment and its unique challenges.

The widespread adoption of smartphones and tablet devices, along with advancements in data communication technology, has resulted in a paradigm shift in the treatment of dizziness. External factors, such as the spread of COVID-19, have accelerated this transformation in recent years. We have been pursuing telemedicine and online medical care to treat dizziness and have developed different products and services necessary for each treatment process stage. Several patients face difficulties in accessing medical facilities during severe vertigo episodes. Furthermore, clinical findings, such as nystagmus or other symptoms, may be absent when symptoms subside by the time of their appointment.

Choosing a specialty is a key decision for United States (U.S.) medical students, finalized in the fourth year through the National Resident Matching Program. Influencing factors include experience, gender, lifestyle, finances, and personality. Aligning personality with specialty can boost job satisfaction and patient care. With 51% of pre-clerkship students eyeing competitive fields, making early insights valuable. The five-factor model includes extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Neuroticism—linked to anxiety and emotional instability—affects decision-making, but its role in specialty choice is underexplored. Studies show surgeons tend to have low neuroticism, while future obstetricians and psychiatrists show higher levels. This study examines the relationship between neuroticism and specialty choice among medical students at a U.S. allopathic medical school. The goal is to provide insights for personalized medical career counseling and interventions tailored to student needs.

3D technology including models and images can facilitate healthcare consultations by promoting a better understanding of information by patients and shared decision-making. However, little is yet known about the general public’s perspectives about the acceptability of such innovative technology and how it can best be adopted into routine healthcare consultations. There is a need to explore both public and patient perceptions to avoid the risk of implementing 3D technologies that may not be acceptable or fit-for-purpose.

Amblyopia, a unilateral or bilateral visual disorder, affects up to 5% of the general population and is a leading cause of childhood visual impairment. Current treatments, such as patching therapy, aim to improve amblyopia by temporarily occluding the unaffected eye, thereby promoting the use of the amblyopic eye. However, adherence to patch therapy can be challenging, as the forced use of the amblyopic eye can be stressful for children. Moreover, despite improvements in visual acuity by patch therapy, children with amblyopia often face difficulties with hand-eye coordination; therefore, a treatment that reduces stress for them while simultaneously improving hand-eye coordination could address the limitations of existing amblyopia therapies.

Evidence-based tube feeding (TF) weaning involves reducing the volume of tube feeds to induce hunger, with interdisciplinary monitoring to allow for proactive medical, nutritional, and behavioral intervention as needed. This can be done outpatient; however, the current standard of care requires a high degree of medical monitoring and care coordination, which can be challenging to implement. The CHAMP® App is a mobile application designed for remote patient monitoring with children born with congenital heart conditions who are at high risk for medical morbidity and mortality. The CHAMP app remote patient monitoring program would be ideally suited to improve medical monitoring and care coordination.

Recent advancements in sports medicine have been fueled by innovative technologies, particularly consumer-grade wearable devices like Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Garmin. These devices offer physiological and biomechanical data and hold promise for personalized, real-time, and remote assessment of athlete recovery. However, few studies have been conducted with these devices in adolescent student athletes.

Many studies find associations between hepatitis B and stigma, but studies from the Western European context are lacking. Based on available studies, we hypothesized that younger age, higher education, male gender, higher privacy needs, and non-German mother tongue were positively associated with perceived hepatitis B-related stigma.