Informatics for Health & Social Care最新文献

We aimed to describe website traffic and qualitatively analyze an e-health community discussion forum. Participants in this study were people affected by multiple sclerosis visiting the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis (OMS) website. This mixed methods study combined descriptive analysis of website traffic over 7 years and 1 month, and qualitative analysis of 1 week of posts in the meditation topic, coded into theme groups using qualitative thematic analysis. There were 166 meditation topics posted with 21,530 initial views of primary post and 785 sub-post responses. Meditation posts and sub-posts received 368,713 replies. Number of views increased from 4,684 in 2011 to over 80,000 in 2017, a considerably greater rate of increase than overall traffic. Qualitative analysis of posts on the meditation forum identified themes of barriers and enablers to utilization of meditation resources. Enablement themes dominated, observed across six of the seven theme groups with various forms of positive social and emotional support to learn and practice meditation. One theme, negative emotion, was identified as a barrier. The OMS peer-to-peer patient online discussion forum serves important functions in encouraging, educating and enabling its growing online community. Our analysis may help improve and innovate online support for lifestyle management in many chronic diseases.

Objective: To review the qualitative literature on mobile health applications for people with dementia.

Methods: A systematic review was undertaken. Five databases were searched using relevant keywords. Titles, abstracts and full-text papers were screened independently by two reviewers. Data extraction and quality assessment were conducted. Analysis was guided by framework synthesis and underpinned by the Digital Health Engagement Model.

Results: Nine studies were included. Three themes emerged around the experiences of people with dementia when using health apps. The technology seemed to improve some aspects of physical, mental and social health such as stimulating cognitive function and communication skills. When implementing health applications with persons with dementia six themes came to light. How well an application or mobile device was designed and the quality of information on it, seemed to influence use. Digital knowledge and skills were also needed to engage with the technology. One's personal lifestyle and agency were other relevant factors affecting implementation, along with the health of an individual with dementia.

Conclusion: Further research examining the efficacy of health apps for people with dementia is required. Utilizing co-design approaches to create mobile technology with those with dementia should also be considered.

Prospero registration number: CRD42015029846.

The objective was to test the feasibility of a novel model of electronic linkage and interrogation of large, sensitive, administrative datasets derived from health care, social care, and criminal justice. Participants comprised all individuals having completed suicide or drug-related death in Tayside between 2009 and 2014. Data were hosted, linked, and pseudo-anonymized by a Trusted Third Party and were interrogated via secure access to the HIC Scottish Government-certified Safe Haven. Several barriers were encountered concerning data access, with all but one issue (obtaining criminal justice data) ultimately soluble. However, each barrier led to a substantial delay in either obtaining the required approvals or in receiving the specified data extracts. Generally, data coverage was good but data quality was poor, with almost a fifth of the data fields (17%) being less than 10% complete. The feasibility of this novel approach was demonstrated. Critically, this was achieved because of the central involvement of a Trusted Third Party and the use of a Government-certified Safe Haven. Future studies using a similar model of data acquisition and analysis should consider the potential delays resulting from organizations' lack of familiarity with their data-sharing protocols and procedures.

Introduction: A lack of core food accessibility negatively affects diet quality, potentially increasing the prevalence of health risk factors such as obesity. The purpose of this study was to investigate core food access in an Australian regional center through the use of data visualization techniques.

Methods: Supermarkets were used as a proxy for core food accessibility and were identified and mapped by town region with a combination of Google Maps and Stata/IC 15.1 software. A statistical analysis comparing the demographics of each town region was also completed using Stata.

Results: The maps generated suggest that there may be a disparity in core food accessibility between town regions. The analysis of demographics demonstrated that one town region had a greater proportion of disadvantaged residents, with statistically significant variation between regions.

Conclusion: Data visualization and analysis may be a useful tool for clinicians to communicate accessibility information experienced by local residents. This need not be limited to food accessibility and extended to health services.

Objective: This study examines how seniors in Singapore use mobile devices for healthcare purposes.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 35 mobile phone users aged between 58-82 years old.

Results: Seniors regard mobile phones as important personal devices for socialization, security, and emergency purposes. Most of the seniors consider mobile telephony (voice calls and text messaging) as an accessible platform to access healthcare. Perceived usefulness, ease of use, compatibility, technology anxiety, financial cost, and self-efficacy were identified as factors affecting the use of mHealth among seniors. Although a few adopt mHealth applications and mobile Internet for health-information seeking, some younger seniors show enthusiastic attitudes toward its adoption. Additionally, some seniors also have technology anxiety and resistance toward using mHealth applications.

Conclusion: Seniors use mobile phones for healthcare purposes in their daily life, and its use involves several facilitators and barriers. Interpersonal training is likely to reduce their anxiety and increase mHealth literacy and adoption. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Objective To assess users' usability, satisfaction, acceptance and effectiveness of the PRECIOUS system to promote behavior change toward healthier lifestyles. Design: Thirty-one adult patients with BMI>30 (M = 44.23, SD = 5.91) were recruited and randomized into three conditions for a longitudinal study (3 months length): 1) Control group (TAU + biofeedback + follow-ups); 2) PRECIOUS only (app + biofeedback + follow-ups); 3) PRECIOUS + MI (app + biofeedback + motivational interviewing follow-ups). Main Outcome Measures: Usability, satisfaction, acceptance and effectiveness of PRECIOUS, and stages of change (S-Weight questionnaire). Results: The system was described as easy to use, flexible, fairly satisfying and good as a preventive health system. Participants rated biofeedback and the Physical Activity module as the most satisfying features. However, participants were unsatisfied with the Diet module. All additional features received acceptable scores in terms of satisfaction. Despite this, the PRECIOUS only group reported that they would probably recommend the system to others because it meets its purposes quite well. Conclusion: PRECIOUS was found a usable and acceptable solution, although improving several features in the Diet module in successive versions of the app would promote sustained use and satisfaction among users, possibly increasing its effectiveness in promoting healthier lifestyles. Abbreviations: ADA American Diabetes Association; BG2: BodyGuard2; BMI: Body Mass Index; CBT: Cognitive-behavioral therapy; EMA: Ecological Momentary Assessment; eHealth: Electronic health; mHealth: Mobile health; MI: Motivational interviewing; NCD: Non-communicable diseases; PA: Physical activity; PRECIOUS: PREventive Care Infrastructure based On Ubiquitous Sensing.

The primary objective of this study was to identify meaningful indicators of patient portal use deemed important to psychiatric consumers. The secondary objectives were to uncover: 1) barriers and facilitators to patient portal use; and, 2) desired functionality of the technology by psychiatric consumers.

A qualitative descriptive study was conducted using focus groups consisting of psychiatric consumers, their family members/caregivers, and Peer Support Workers. Two members of the research team independently performed a content analysis, and came to agreement on the identified coding hierarchy and themes. A total of twenty-three participants took part in one of five focus groups. Engagement and empowerment, consumer experience and satisfaction, and quality of care were identified as outcome indicators. Privacy and security, portal usage, and usability were identified as important process indicators. A number of barriers and facilitators were identified. Finally, psychiatric consumers desired functionality of a patient portal were discussed.

Findings suggest that patient portal research among psychiatric populations can be conducted using many of the indicators that have previously been used for physical health populations. However, this study identified other unique considerations that should be accounted for when evaluating a patient portal among psychiatric populations.

Machine learning (ML) techniques can be utilized by physicians, clinicians, as well as other users, to discover Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) symptoms based on historical cases and controls to enhance autism screening efficiency and accuracy. The aim of this study is to improve the performance of detecting ASD traits by reducing data dimensionality and eliminating redundancy in the autism dataset. To achieve this, a new semi-supervised ML framework approach called Clustering-based Autistic Trait Classification (CATC) is proposed that uses a clustering technique and that validates classifiers using classification techniques. The proposed method identifies potential autism cases based on their similarity traits as opposed to a scoring function used by many ASD screening tools. Empirical results on different datasets involving children, adolescents, and adults were verified and compared to other common machine learning classification techniques. The results showed that CATC offers classifiers with higher predictive accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity rates than those of other intelligent classification approaches such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Random Forest, Random Trees, and Rule Induction. These classifiers are useful as they are exploited by diagnosticians and other stakeholders involved in ASD screening.

To ensure that adolescents adhere to programmes promoting healthy behaviors, these programmes must be appealing and interesting. This study aims to characterize and assess the devices, operating system and type of mobile apps frequently used by adolescents; understand the features that mHealth apps should have to be appealing; comprehend the facilitators and barriers for adolescents to use mHealth apps. The sample comprised 165 adolescents (12-18 years) from the main population, recruited in 2018. Most participants used smartphones and the Android system. Food and physical activity suggestions were considered the most important features for an mHealth app. 62.6% had never tried an mHealth app. For those who had tried one, 26.0% stated it was to improve health status/lifestyle. Their favorite feature was physical exercise tips/plans (41.8%). Adolescents pointed out that the reasons that made them keep using the app were utility and interest (35.7%). Regarding possible barriers, 48.4% reported a lack of a senseof need/practical utility, and 18.8% considered notifications as their least favorite feature. Lack of interest was pointed out for 38.2% as the main reason for stopping use. Results provide practical information for the planning, design, and implementation of future mHealth apps for the promotion of healthy behaviors - an important implication for future research in this area.

Objective: In this work, we propose a new care concept for dementia patients in their own apartments: interconnected living in a quarter. We describe a technical setup that is comprised of a safety system and an activity detection system. The latter detects, processes and illustrates activities of daily living to help the quarter managers to provide appropriate interventions for persons with dementia in the quarter.

Participants: The nine-month field study reported in this work was conducted in two quarters with eight participants.

Methods: We evaluated different possibilities to determine activity indicators with the aim of providing information that enables the quarter managers to offer exactly the level of support needed by each individual patient. To evaluate the usefulness and the perception of the technical infrastructure, qualitative interviews with the dementia patients and the quarter managers were conducted.

Results: The results indicate that the interconnected living concept helps to increase the safety of the dementia patients. Additionally, several activity indicators that help the quarter managers to offer the appropriate level of support to the dementia patients have been identified.

Conclusion: The presented concept, which has been evaluated in a real-world-setting, constitutes a new holistic and cross-disciplinary dementia care approach.