Designing mHealth Apps to Incorporate Evidence-Based Techniques for Prolonging User Engagement.

Maintaining user engagement with mobile health (mHealth) apps can be a challenge. Previously, we developed a conceptual model to optimize patient engagement in mHealth apps by incorporating multiple evidence-based methods, including increasing health literacy, enhancing technical competence, and improving feelings about participation in clinical trials. This viewpoint aims to report on a series of exploratory mini-experiments demonstrating the feasibility of testing our previously published engagement conceptual model.

Mobile app activity engagement by cancer patients and their caregivers informs remote monitoring.

Mobile phone applications ("apps") are potentially an effective, low-burden method to collect patient-reported outcomes outside the clinical setting. Using such apps consistently and in a timely way is critical for complete and accurate data capture, but no studies of concurrent reporting by cancer patient-caregiver dyads have been published in the peer-reviewed literature. This study assessed app engagement, defined as adherence, timing, and attrition with two smartphone applications, one for adult cancer patients and one for their informal caregivers.

Correction: Correlation Between Remote Symptom Reporting by Caregivers and Adverse Clinical Outcomes: Mixed Methods Study.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/49100.].

Correlation Between Remote Symptom Reporting by Caregivers and Adverse Clinical Outcomes: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: Timely collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) decreases emergency department visits and hospitalizations and increases survival. However, little is known about the outcome predictivity of unpaid informal caregivers' reporting using similar clinical outcome assessments.

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess whether caregivers and adults with cancer adhered to a planned schedule for electronically collecting patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and if PROs were associated with future clinical events.

Usability evaluation of mobile phone technologies for capturing cancer patient-reported outcomes and physical functions.

Background: By eliminating the requirement for participants to make frequent visits to research sites, mobile phone applications ("apps") may help to decentralize clinical trials. Apps may also be an effective mechanism for capturing patient-reported outcomes and other endpoints, helping to optimize patient care during and outside of clinical trials.

Objectives: We report on the usability of Digital BioMarkers for Clinical Impact (DigiBioMarC™ (DBM)), a novel smartphone-based app used by cancer patients in conjunction with a wearable device (Apple Watch®).