JMIR Formative Research

Adolescent sleep duration can substantially impact mood, behavior, and academic attainment. While hundreds of sleep-related apps are available to download, none have been cocreated with adolescents from underserved populations in the United Kingdom.

Latino/a/x adults have higher rates of unmet mental health needs than other racial and ethnic groups. One promising solution to help bridge this gap in care is digital mental health tools. Digital tools, such as self-help websites, have demonstrated the ability to enhance mental health literacy, reduce stigma, and improve mental health symptoms. Despite the potential benefits, engagement remains a critical challenge, and there has been a large oversight of unique considerations for Latino/a/x adults as end users.

Osteoporosis is a major global health challenge, but treatment uptake and long-term adherence remain low, raising the risk of future fractures. Barriers to effective care include low patient awareness, financial constraints, and challenges with ongoing monitoring and follow-up. Although mobile health and telemedicine tools can support chronic disease management, many osteoporosis apps lack clinical validation and structured medication management features.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with significant health and societal economic burdens, making treatment a priority. There are effective treatments, but there is no indication at this point which treatments will work best for which patients. Patient decision aids (DAs) are evidence-based tools designed to support patients and providers in weighing the benefits and risks of different treatment options and in making value-informed choices as one part of shared decision-making. The National Center for PTSD published an online PTSD Treatment DA in 2017.

Maintaining stable glucose levels is important for metabolic health. Glucose excursions (GEs), which are marked increases in glucose following food intake, have been associated with a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and metabolic dysfunction. Individuals with overweight or obesity who do not have diabetes may still show impaired glucose regulation, as reflected in increased glucose variability. Hunger, as a real-time physiological cue, may be associated with subsequent glucose changes and represents a potential target for just-in-time adaptive interventions.

Chronic insomnia is a highly prevalent sleep disorder that adversely affects quality of life and mental health. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is internationally recommended as the first-line treatment, and digital CBT-I (dCBT-I) has been developed to improve accessibility and scalability. While existing dCBT-I systems effectively support structured behavioral training through standardized protocols, they provide relatively limited support for users’ cognitive exploration and meaning-making processes, particularly in helping users reflect on and internalize the rationale behind CBT-I practices in daily life. These limitations may contribute to challenges in sustained engagement and long-term adherence.

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an evidence-based, multicomponent intervention. However, participation in and reach of CR remain suboptimal globally. Digital CR is a promising alternative to traditional center-based CR, with the potential to increase intervention reach and efficiency. However, efforts to increase the efficiency of digital CR require an understanding of the relative effectiveness of the components of CR, which is currently lacking. The Multiphase Optimization Strategy provides a framework to evaluate the effects of individual components within complex interventions.

More than 80% of breast cancer survivors do not meet the recommended levels of exercise, and <50% of health care providers promote exercise as part of survivorship care. Patient-provider communication may enhance exercise engagement by increasing patients’ understanding of exercise benefits and linking patients to resources, such as rehabilitation and exercise programs.

Pediatric heart disease (PHD), including congenital heart defects, is often incompletely captured in electronic health records, particularly when clinical significance must be inferred from unstructured echocardiogram reports. Automated methods capable of extracting clinically meaningful PHD from narrative reports could improve clinical decision support and research applications.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex, fluctuating disease, creating a continuous need for reliable patient information. A prior study concluded that patients with SLE often turn to the internet, including artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, for information regarding SLE. The rise of AI chatbots as a primary information source presents a critical challenge regarding the accuracy of the information they provide.

Body donor dissection is fundamental to medical education but often induces anxiety and emotional distress in students, potentially impacting learning outcomes and well-being. Traditional preparation methods emphasize technical and procedural elements while inadequately addressing students’ emotional challenges. Recent advances in educational technology, particularly 360° video-based virtual reality (VR), may enhance students’ emotional readiness by providing immersive previews of dissection environments. However, the application of this technology specifically for emotional preparation for body donor dissection remains largely unexplored.

South Asian Americans are at high risk of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). South Asian populations are typically close-knit communities, with support networks that could be leveraged in lifestyle interventions.