Source: freepik.com Copyright: jcomp URL: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/female-hand-typing-keyboard-laptop_5432776.htm#page=2&query=laptop&position=47   New research by a multidisciplinary collaboration between Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research (AUKCAR): Queen Mary and Edinburgh, eHealth Interdisciplinary Group: Edinburgh, University of Nottingham, University of Cambridge, and the charity Asthma UK, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, looks at the characteristics of superusers who are actively engaged in the Asthma UK online community and Facebook group to help health care professionals better understand the role they play in supporting the management of long-term conditions. The Role of the Superuser Online health communities help people to self-manage certain aspects of their long-term conditions better throughRead More →

Source: Marianne T.S. Holter Here’s a scenario that you might recognize: You’re running some qualitative user interviews as part of developing or implementing an eHealth program, and some interesting aspects about program use keeps coming up in the interviews. You have a hunch that this might be of interest to the field more in general, beyond your specific program, and wish you could explore it more thoroughly. However, although it seems to linger in the background in several interviews, not all your interviewees talk directly about it, and so you don’t really have enough data to publish anything separately on it. So, then what do youRead More →

Source: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center BOSTON – A new study of more than 20,000 adult patients, led by Jan Walker, RN, MBA, co-founder of OpenNotes, found that reading office visit notes offers considerable benefits for patients, particularly those from underserved populations. The study, “OpenNotes After 7 Years: Patient Experiences With Ongoing Access to Their Clinicians’ Outpatient Visit Notes” published today in the open access Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), is the first large-scale assessment to date of patients’ experiences with a broad range of clinicians working in practices where shared notes are well established. Among the survey respondents, 98 percent thought online access toRead More →

Commercial app stores urgently need to address the lack of information available to consumers about the benefits and quality of health apps, according to a new study funded by the NIHR Maudsley BRC. The study was published in the open access journal, Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). The study highlights the lack of solid evidence for claims made about health apps, which may actually provide little benefit or even cause harm. It calls for closer regulation of the health app industry, which is estimated to be worth $25 billion globally, and whose business depends on rapid high sales. Led by Professor Dame Til Wykes, who leads the BRC’sRead More →

Source: Ursula Whiteside There is enormous and largely untapped potential to prevent suicide, and that’s because suicidal people visit their doctors. Nearly half of people who die by suicide visit their doctor in the month before their death. Routine screening for depression can uncover suicidal thoughts—but that’s only part of the story.  Doctors need suicide-specific resources for immediate, brief intervention. The NowMattersNow.org website is an open-access, video-based resource for individuals with suicidal thoughts. A study just released in the open-access journal, Journal of Medical Internet Research, found that suicidal people visiting NowMattersNow.org reported measurable reductions in intensity of suicidal thoughts and emotions. Researchers asked over 3000Read More →

Source:University of Turku A program developed for the early detection of children’s disruptive behavior and low-threshold digital parent training intervention was successfully transferred to child health clinics in primary health care, shows a new Finnish study. In addition, the program’s low discontinuation rate implies that parents experienced digitally implemented intervention as both user-friendly and easily accessible. This is the first study on the implementation of an online psychosocial treatment in pediatric primary health care which is based on population screening. Transferring an evidence-based treatment to practice is not self-evident but requires extensive work. The study published in the open access journal, Journal of Medical InternetRead More →

Source: Radboud University Behavioural scientists are increasingly designing games that can be used preventatively or as therapy for young people with emerging or chronic psychological problems, such as anxiety or depression. Nevertheless, the development and validation of these games is still in its infancy. According to behavioural scientists Hanneke Scholten and Isabela Granic of Radboud University, a form of “design thinking,” which is customary among commercial game developers, could help to deliver on the promise of true interactive online therapy, as published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research January 14, 2019. Recent prevalence rates show that approximately 80% of teenagers with anxiety and depression problemsRead More →

Source: Kath Middleditch Around 15-25% of women experience significant levels of anxiety in the perinatal period (pregnancy and a year after childbirth). Despite being treatable, most women experiencing perinatal anxiety (PNA) don’t seek help. “There is so much pressure to be the ‘perfect mother’ these days, and there are a lot of unrealistic expectations around motherhood, so when women struggle to meet them, they can often think that they are failing somehow, or worry that they may be seen as a ‘bad mother’,” says Dr Gini Harrison. Lack of support for women New research published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research suggests this might beRead More →