Digital public health is an emerging field in population-based research and practice. The fast development of digital technologies provides a fundamentally new understanding of improving public health by using digitalization, especially in prevention and health promotion. The first step toward a better understanding of digital public health is to conceptualize the subject of the assessment by defining what digital public health interventions are.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJMIR Public Health Surveill
November 2021
Background: Digital technologies are shaping medicine and public health.
Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes toward and the use of digital technologies for health-related purposes using a nationwide survey.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study using a panel sample of internet users selected from the general population living in Germany.
Introduction: The prevalence rates of obesity have increased in recent decades; despite leveling off in recent German studies among children and adolescents, obesity rates remain high. Psychosocial factors have an adverse impact on the maintenance of obesity. Hence, this study examined the mediating effects of mental health problems on the relation between the body mass index standard deviation score (BMI-SDS) and global health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among adolescent inpatients with obesity while controlling for gender and age-group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFApps are becoming an increasingly important component of modern Public Health and health care. However, successful implementation of apps does not come without challenges. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) provides a central typology to support the development of implementation theories and the examination of what works where and why in different contexts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Health behavior change can be modelled in terms of stages, and outcomes of transitions between stages can be categorized into progression, regression, and stagnation. Based on the Health Action Process Approach this study tested whether changes in social-cognitive variables are associated with transitions between stages regarding physical activity (PA) and fruit and vegetable intake (FVI).
Methods: N = 132 participants (M = 50.
Contact tracing is currently one of the most effective measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to identify persons that would otherwise not be known or remembered and to keep the time delay when reporting an infection and when contacting people as short as possible, digital contact tracing using smartphones seems to be a reasonable measure additional to manual contact tracing. Although first modelling studies predicted a positive effect in terms of prompt contact tracing, no empirically reliable data are as yet available, neither on the population-wide benefit nor on the potential risks of contact tracing apps.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Patient safety is a key target in public health, health services and medicine. Communication between all parties involved in gynecology and obstetrics (clinical staff/professionals, expectant mothers/patients and their partners, close relatives or friends providing social support) should be improved to ensure patient safety, including the avoidance of preventable adverse events (pAEs). Therefore, interventions including an app will be developed in this project through a participatory approach integrating two theoretical models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Obesity is strongly represented in adolescents, showing a high persistency until adulthood. Previous studies displayed short term effects of inpatient rehabilitation, but failed to demonstrate sustainability. Long-term effects might be expected when taking the motivational stage of adolescents into account.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Current guidelines recommend rehabilitative measures to alleviate dis- turbances resulting from cancer and its treatment. To give cancer survivors further assistance in getting back to work, work-related medical rehabilitation is currently being tested in Germany. In this cluster-randomized, multicenter trial, we studied the efficacy of work-related medical rehabilitation compared with conventional medical rehabilitation (trial no.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: While there is substantial evidence on the relationship between life satisfaction and present physical activity (PA), less is known about which specific PA biographies are associated with a high quality of life and aging satisfaction. Our objective was to identify classes of PA biographies that may be associated with life and aging satisfaction.
Methods: In this longitudinal study, PA biographies were assessed retrospectively as a baseline, followed by assessments of life and aging satisfaction at six and twelve months in 418 adults aged 60-95.
Background: Effective multidisciplinary rehabilitation programs supporting the return to work have become increasingly relevant for cancer survivors. In Germany, inpatient work-related medical rehabilitation programs consider treatment modules of work-related diagnostics, work-related functional capacity training, psychosocial groups, and intensified social counseling. The authors tested the effectiveness of a work-related medical rehabilitation program compared with conventional medical rehabilitation using a cluster-randomized multicenter trial (German Clinical Trial Register: DRKS00007770).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To develop a work-related medical rehabilitation (WMR) program for cancer patients based on the best available evidence, the expertise of rehabilitation professionals and the perspective of the patients, to ensure the fidelity of its implementation and to prepare its subsequent outcome evaluation.
Material And Methods: The implementation study was based on organizational ethnography and action research, and followed a multimethod, participatory and iterative approach to data collection and analysis. The authors carried out observations in 4 rehabilitation centers and conducted focus groups with rehabilitation professionals and patients.
To explore the views of experts on facilitators and barriers of long-term physical activity among people with multiple sclerosis living in different European countries. We conducted semi-structured telephone or face to face interviews with twelve multiple sclerosis and physical activity experts (scientists, practitioners, patient representatives) from five European countries. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Web-based and theory-based interventions for multiple health behaviors appears to be a promising approach with respect to the adoption and maintenance of a healthy lifestyle in cardiac patients who have been discharged from the hospital. Until now, no randomized controlled trials have tested this assumption among Chinese rehabilitation patients with coronary heart disease using a Web-based intervention.
Objective: The study aim was to evaluate the effect of an 8-week Web-based intervention in terms of physical activity (PA), fruit and vegetable consumption (FVC), lifestyle changes, social-cognitive outcomes, and health outcomes compared with a waiting control group in Chinese cardiac patients.
Background: Regular physical activity treatment has been advocated for the prevention and rehabilitation of patients at risk of cardiovascular diseases and depressive symptoms. How physical activity is related to depressive symptoms is widely discussed.
Objective: The aim of this internet-based study was to investigate the role of perceived social support in the relationship between physical activity habit strength and depressive symptoms.
EHealth behaviour change interventions that help participants to adhere to professional physical activity recommendations can help to prevent future events of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Therefore, identifying user groups of such interventions based on stages of health behaviour change is of great importance to provide tailored content to users instead of one-size-fits-all approaches. Our study used Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to identify underlying classes of users of an eHealth behaviour change intervention based on stages of change and associated variables.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDue to the increase in unhealthy lifestyles and associated health risks, the promotion of healthy lifestyles to improve the prevention of non-communicable diseases is imperative. Thus, research aiming to identify strategies to modify health behaviors has been encouraged. Little is known about addressing multiple health behaviors across age groups (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Rehabilitation programs that support return to work become increasingly relevant for cancer survivors. In Germany, such programs were established as work-related medical rehabilitation (WMR). The study investigated whether WMR leads to better results compared to medical rehabilitation (MR).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Effort-reward imbalance (ERI) and self-rated work ability are known independent correlates and predictors of intended disability pension claims. However, little research has focused on the interrelationship between the three and whether self-rated work ability mediates the relationship between ERI and intended disability pension claims.
Aims: To investigate whether self-rated work ability mediates the association between ERI and intended disability pension claims.
Background: Ample evidence demonstrates that university students are at high risk for sedentary behaviors and inadequate fruit and vegetable intake (FVI). Internet-based interventions for multiple health behavior appear to be promising in changing such unhealthy habits. Limited randomized controlled trials have tested this assumption among Chinese university students.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The study investigated differences in motivational and volitional correlates of physical activity in persons who reported currently having hypertension, had hypertension in the past, or had no hypertension by using the health action process approach as a theoretical background.
Method: Self-reported data from 512 participants (71.9% women; M = 46.
Background: Work is a central resource for cancer survivors as it not only provides income but also impacts health and quality of life. Additionally, work helps survivors to cope with the perceived critical life event. The German Pension Insurance provides medical rehabilitation for working-age patients with chronic diseases to improve and restore their work ability, and support returning to or staying at work, and thus tries to sustainably avoid health-related early retirement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Visual analogue scales (VASs) have been shown to be valid measurement instruments and a better alternative to Likert-type scales in Internet-based research, both empirically and theoretically [1,2]. Upsides include more differentiated responses, better measurement level, and less error. Their feasibility and properties in the context of eHealth, however, have not been examined so far.
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