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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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Although mobile health (mHealth) apps for tobacco cessation augment traditional cessation methods and have contributed to increases in cessation rates, Black adults are underrepresented in mHealth app studies for tobacco cessation. As a result, their mHealth app preferences are not well-known.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Death is a difficult topic to discuss for many. Notwithstanding, there is much to learn regarding the contemporary Japanese people’s views on a good (peaceful) death. Particularly, shifts in public perceptions of death following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic should be considered by health care staff who deliver end-of-life care.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

The transition from acute to chronic pain often reflects a persistent dissociation between physical tissue damage and subjective reports. In alignment with the 2020 International Association for the Study of Pain definition, pain is a personal experience filtered through a latent “susceptibility architecture.” While clinical assessment currently relies on static, text-based questionnaires, these are often confounded by linguistic interpretation bias and cognitive literacy. We hypothesized that an individual’s internal psychological substrate—traditionally captured via text—can be characterized through real-time behavioral signatures during physical challenge.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Health care leaders face a strategic dilemma: traditional expert-led content development ensures safety but is too slow for digital innovation, whereas artificial intelligence (AI) automation offers speed but introduces risks from hallucinations. Resolving this tension requires governance frameworks that balance operational efficiency with rigorous accountability for patient safety.

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Viewpoint

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is arriving in high-stakes assessment; however, governance, validity evidence, and faculty readiness remain uneven. From a Taiwan-Japan perspective, we outline a pragmatic, transferable approach to integrating AI into nursing objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) using a 5-AI-role model—learning assistant, AI‑augmented standardized patient, assessment assistant, case generator, and learning analyst—mapped across pre-OSCE, peri-OSCE, and post-OSCE workflows with human-in-the-loop final judgment. Taiwan contributes agile interdisciplinary development, staged pilots (practice, mock OSCE, and limited high-stakes stations), A/B comparisons, and explainability-by-design logging that links scores to time-stamped evidence. Japan contributes robust policy scaffolding (national AI use guidance in K-12, a revised nursing model core curriculum with outcomes and assessment blueprints, and institutional research cultures that support auditability and quality assurance). We distill 4 cross-cutting governance pillars—human oversight, learning process transparency, ethics and safety, and traceability—into implementable techniques (machine-readable rubrics, standardized patient persona cards, bias monitoring, and targeted faculty development). Aligning with international principles (International Advisory Committee for AI; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; World Health Organization; European Commission’s High Level Expert Group; and National Institute of Standards and Technology), we propose a joint road map and shared registry to benchmark reliability, validity, equity, and workload impact. This viewpoint targets OSCE directors, nursing educators, and institutional leaders and provides a phase-gated governance blueprint rather than reporting original trial outcomes. Taiwan-led agility, complemented by Japan’s standards-driven assurance, can form an Asia-Pacific reference model for trustworthy AI‑augmented OSCE in nursing education.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Visual patient avatars are an innovative patient monitoring technology that can be used to translate numerical and waveform data into intuitive, avatar-based representations of patient conditions. Previous research indicates that this technology improves health care providers’ situational awareness compared to conventional monitoring methods. As patient-worn continuous vital sign monitoring continues to evolve, we introduce the Visual Patient Wearable device to provide avatar-based visualization tailored to this application.

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Early Results in Infodemiology and Infoveillance

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for children and adolescents aged 6 to 18 years. Pediatric suicidality is underreported, which poses significant challenges for effective intervention and prevention strategies. Identifying populations at risk of suicidality can provide critical benefits in terms of study cohort selection, prevalence estimation, and clinical resource allocation.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Depression during the perinatal period poses significant risks to both maternal and infant health. Although transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has shown promise as a safe and well-tolerated intervention for perinatal depression, empirical evidence remains limited, and no prior study has integrated clinical outcomes with continuous objective behavioral monitoring.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Health care has seen several new disruptive technologies. One such innovation is the introduction of blockchain smart contracts. These smart contracts are activated automatically once preprogrammed conditions are met. Smart contracts have improved patient outcomes, the efficiency of care delivery, and reduced costs. Despite their benefits, patients have had limited interactions with smart contracts in primary care; therefore, they may not trust blockchain-based smart contracts and may perceive them as risky or have concerns about their security.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Mental health providers (MHPs) face a significant administrative burden from documentation, which can contribute to burnout and reduce time available for direct patient care. Although artificial intelligence (AI)–powered scribes have shown promise in general medical settings, their utility has not been well explored in the specific context of mental health care. This study describes the development and preliminary observational evaluation of Smart Notes, a generative AI tool designed to assist MHPs with documentation on a commercial virtual mental health platform.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Approximately 45% of individuals taking methadone or buprenorphine have chronic pain. These medications are commonly prescribed for chronic pain or opioid use disorder (OUD). To optimize pain management as well as reduce opioid-related symptoms (eg, craving) and risks (misuse and overdose), there is a critical need for a brief, effective, and accessible pain skills intervention for this population.

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Formative Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

Stress is a key determinant of health outcomes and may influence work performance. Questionnaire-based assessments of stress are typically broad and retrospective. Daily stress measurements via smartphones offer more granular, real-time data but have adherence issues. Using an already established communication medium (WhatsApp) and a more conversational style assessment might improve adherence and help collect more detailed insights into (work) stress, underlying stressors, and countering energy sources.

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