JMIR Formative 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.

Standards for the secondary use of health data remain under development and do not comprehensively address specific categories of health data. Existing health data and interoperability standards are primarily designed for the primary use of health care, leaving gaps in their applicability for research, regulatory and decision-making. This research is part of the Integration of Heterogeneous Data and Evidence Towards Regulatory and Health Technology Assessment Acceptance (IDERHA) project, which creates a federated processing environment for secondary health care use cases.

Diagnostic errors in primary care contribute substantially to avoidable morbidity. Real-time, voice-based artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostic assistants may support diagnostic reasoning during clinical encounters, but formative evidence that can be used to assess both diagnostic benefit and overreliance risk before clinical deployment is needed from interactive settings.

Many adolescents experience elevated stress and anxiety; yet, access to effective psychological support is limited. Brief digital mental health interventions, such as slow breathing (SB) and detached mindfulness (DM), offer a potentially scalable approach to promoting emotion regulation in daily life.

Foodborne diseases remain a significant global public health concern, imposing substantial health and economic burdens. The COVID-19 pandemic altered health care–seeking behaviors, infection control practices, and infectious disease epidemiology; however, its association with microbial foodborne pathogens remains incompletely characterized.

Precision medical education (PME) is an emerging concept that aims to improve physician education by tailoring curricula specifically to each learner. The basic framework behind PME requires collecting data on each individual learner, identifying gaps in knowledge, and then applying direct educational interventions. However, logistical difficulties in the delivery of such interventions hinder the implementation of PME in existing academic programs.

Teletherapy is gaining increasing importance in physiotherapeutic care but has so far been only marginally established in Germany. The current state of use, attitudes, and perceived barriers among physiotherapists remains insufficiently described.

Occupation-based practice (OBP) has been demonstrated to enhance occupational performance and goal attainment in stroke rehabilitation. However, existing evidence is predominantly derived from hospital-based settings, with limited investigations into OBP implementation in community contexts. In Thailand, particularly in rural areas, there remains a need to establish effective OBP service delivery models and to evaluate their outcomes across diverse client populations receiving community-based rehabilitation services.

Measurement of life space characterizes people’s engagement with their environment. Several studies have used GPS devices to capture life space. A challenge with device-based measures is that participants may forget to bring the device with them. Life-space measures that leverage the GPS data from participants’ mobile phones may address this challenge, but few studies have leveraged this approach to date.

Experiment in a Box (XB) is a guided, time-limited framework designed to help individuals test and adapt simple eating and movement heuristics within the context of everyday life. Rather than emphasizing external performance metrics alone, XB invites participants to evaluate practices through felt experience, including whether a practice helps them feel better, worse, or the same. Although prior XB studies have shown promise for supporting health behavior change, less is known about the experiential and interpretive processes through which participants use XB to connect felt experience with action, adaptation, and continued practice.

Rejoyn (CT-152) is a prescription digital therapeutic (DTx) adjunct to antidepressive medication authorized for patients with major depressive disorder. To better understand the patient benefit of DTx and other treatment modalities, current regulatory standards support the use of modern psychometric methods to interpret the clinical meaningfulness of treatment effects for patients. In the primary analysis of Rejoyn from the pivotal phase 3 Mirai trial (NCT04770285), Rejoyn showed a broad risk-to-benefit profile as demonstrated on multiple clinician- and patient-rated scales, including the primary efficacy outcome measure, the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). These findings supported US Food and Drug Administration authorization of Rejoyn as a prescription DTx. However, the clinical relevance of these changes in the MADRS score is not immediately interpretable in clinical practice. Here, we present the results from several post hoc analyses of the Mirai trial data to support the interpretation of clinically meaningful treatment differences on clinician- and patient-reported change in depressive symptoms.

Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is a widely recommended, multidimensional approach for guiding clinical decision-making and management in older adults. However, its implementation remains limited by a shortage of geriatric specialists, the complexity of geriatric care, and the increasing demands of an aging population. Mobile self-administered tools offer a potential strategy to expand access to multidimensional geriatric evaluation, particularly in resource-limited settings.