Opportunities and barriers for reimbursement of digital therapeutics in Austria: Findings From expert interviews.

Background: Digital therapeutics (DTx) are software-based interventions that aim to prevent or treat especially non-communicable diseases. Currently, no framework for reimbursement of DTx exists in Austria. The aim of this study was to gather a comprehensive perspective on regulatory considerations of Austrian stakeholders with regard to reimbursement of DTx and to outline strategies for establishing a national reimbursement framework.

Contextual and affective precursors of physical activity intention and enactment examined through ecological momentary assessment.

Background: Regular physical activity (PA) provides numerous health benefits, which is why many people intend to lead an active lifestyle. Yet, internal and external states and barriers can hinder the translation of such intentions into actual behavior. This study prospectively studied such barriers, namely, the temporal relationship between the independent variables momentary affect (stress, emotions), and the dependent variables PA intentions and subsequent PA behavior.

Validity of Four Consumer-Grade Optical Heart Rate Sensors for Assessing Volume and Intensity Distribution of Physical Activity.

Consumer-grade optical heart rate (HR) sensors emerged as promising tools to monitor volume and intensity of physical activity (PA). However, no validation study of optical HR sensors included recent comprehensive validation recommendations, required for facilitating usage for medical purposes. Validity of HR data measured with four consumer-grade optical sensors, the wrist-worn Garmin Venu 2S and Polar Vantage M2, and the upper arm-worn Polar Verity Sense and Scosche Rhythm24 were assessed in 32 participants over 24 h including various laboratory-based and free-living activities.

Making it transparent: A worked example of articulating programme theory for a digital health application using Intervention Mapping.

Objective: Digital health interventions for behaviour change are usually complex interventions, and intervention developers should 'articulate programme theory', that is, they should offer detailed descriptions of individual intervention components and their proposed mechanisms of action. However, such detailed descriptions often remain lacking. The objective of this work was to provide a conceptual case study with an applied example of 'articulating programme theory' for a newly developed digital health intervention.

Targeting behavioral factors with digital health and shared decision-making to promote cardiac rehabilitation-a narrative review.

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) represents an important steppingstone for many cardiac patients into a more heart-healthy lifestyle to prevent premature death and improve quality of life years. However, CR is underutilized worldwide. In order to support the development of targeted digital health interventions, this narrative review (I) provides understandings of factors influencing CR utilization from a behavioral perspective, (II) discusses the potential of digital health technologies (DHTs) to address barriers and reinforce facilitators to CR, and (III) outlines how DHTs could incorporate shared decision-making to support CR utilization.

Smartphone Apps for Food Purchase Choices: Scoping Review of Designs, Opportunities, and Challenges.

Background: Smartphone apps can aid consumers in making healthier and more sustainable food purchases. However, there is still a limited understanding of the different app design approaches and their impact on food purchase choices. An overview of existing food purchase choice apps and an understanding of common challenges can help speed up effective future developments.

Investigating shared decision-making during the use of a digital health tool for physical activity planning in cardiac rehabilitation.

Background: Shared decision making (SDM) between healthcare professionals and persons with CVD can have a positive impact on motivation, adherence, or sustainability regarding long-term goals and integration of cardiovascular disease (CVD) rehabilitation in the everyday lives of persons with CVD. SDM can foster the transition between regular heart-healthy activity at rehabilitation facilities and more independent activity at home, but it is often challenging to implement SDM given limited time and resources, e.g.

Multi-Stakeholder Design for Complex Digital Health Systems: Development of a Modular Open Research Platform (MORE).

Background: The Modular Open Research Platform (MORE) is being developed as an open-source platform for long-term situated digital health (DH) research and observations with the potential to facilitate studies, evaluations of DH interventions, and remote telehealth monitoring.

Objectives: To implement an iterative development approach that integrates multi-stakeholder perspectives to support a single platform development process.

Method: Capture, fulfil and balance the requirements of a multi-disciplinary group of stakeholders interacting with the system through a Delphi-inspired, iterative and participatory design process encompassing a series of workshops and online surveys.

Usability Testing of a Multi-Level Modeling Framework for Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAIs) in Mobile Health.

The JITAI is an intervention design to support health behavior change. We designed a multi-level modeling framework for JITAIs and developed a proof-of-concept prototype (POC). This study aimed at investigating the usability of the POC by conducting two usability tests with students.

Towards Adaptability of Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions.

Just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) can promote behavior change in patients. It was the aim of our study to make JITAIs adaptable, i.e.

Research on Digital Technology Use in Cardiology: Bibliometric Analysis.

Background: Digital technology uses in cardiology have become a popular research focus in recent years. However, there has been no published bibliometric report that analyzed the corresponding academic literature in order to derive key publishing trends and characteristics of this scientific area.

Objective: We used a bibliometric approach to identify and analyze the academic literature on digital technology uses in cardiology, and to unveil popular research topics, key authors, institutions, countries, and journals.

Process and Outcome Evaluations of Smartphone Apps for Bipolar Disorder: Scoping Review.

Background: Mental health apps (MHAs) provide opportunities for accessible, immediate, and innovative approaches to better understand and support the treatment of mental health disorders, especially those with a high burden, such as bipolar disorder (BD). Many MHAs have been developed, but few have had their effectiveness evaluated.

Objective: This systematic scoping review explores current process and outcome measures of MHAs for BD with the aim to provide a comprehensive overview of current research.