Self-Monitoring Practices and Use of Self-Monitoring Technologies by People with Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases: An International Survey Study.

Background/objectives: Digital health applications (DHAs) promise to improve disease self-management, but adherence remains suboptimal. We aimed to explore self-monitoring practices of rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMD) patients. A web-survey was conducted over 7 months including RMD patients to study their self-monitoring practices and the potential of DHAs.

Methods: Health, sociodemographic, and technology adherence indicators were retrieved for comparison. Regression analyses and unsupervised profiling were performed to investigate multiple patient profiles.

Results: From 228 responses gathered, most reported willingness to use DHAs to monitor their condition (78% agreement), although the majority rarely/never tracked symptoms (64%), often due to stable condition or no perceived value (62%). Of those tracking regularly, 52% used non-digital means. Participants with regular self-monitoring practices were more open to use a self-monitoring app (OR = 0.8 [0.6, 0.9]; = 0.008) and be embedded in multidisciplinary care (OR = 1.4 [1.1, 1.6]; < 0.001), but showed worse health status (g = 0.4; = 0.006). Cluster analyses revealed three distinct groups of reasons for not tracking regularly (χ2 = 174.4; < 0.001), two characterised by perceived low disease activity.

Conclusions: Effective use of DHAs remains limited and non-digital means prevail in symptom monitoring. Findings suggest that better patient engagement strategies and passive monitoring should be adopted in early development stages of DHAs for better long-term disease self-care.