Guido Giunti
Trinity College Dublin, School of Medicine, Faculty Member
- Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad De Medicina, Faculty MemberUniversity of Oulu, Medical Faculty, Faculty Memberadd
Integration of digital self-management solutions into health care processes requires the involvement of health care professionals in the adoption and use of the solutions as part of the care pathway. We conducted 23 interviews with... more
Integration of digital self-management solutions into health care processes requires the involvement of health care professionals in the adoption and use of the solutions as part of the care pathway. We conducted 23 interviews with diverse profiles of health care professionals participating in the treatment of chronic patients in three different countries. Our results indicate that health care professionals appeared relatively motivated at the prospect of having access to patient-generated data. Nevertheless, they appeared less confident in weighing what types of data could be collected efficiently through mobile devices and how it could be presented in ways that would provide value to the care process. Our results identify four broad categories for how patient-generated health data could be useful: monitoring, prevention, research, and transparency of condition parameters.
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Since Covid-19, digital health interventions (DHIs) have been embraced as never before. The pandemic led to many new challenges, including the patient experience in digital health care delivery. In this literature study, we identified and... more
Since Covid-19, digital health interventions (DHIs) have been embraced as never before. The pandemic led to many new challenges, including the patient experience in digital health care delivery. In this literature study, we identified and synthesized factors that impact patient experience in digital health (dPEx), and reviewed the methods and strategies relevant to its design and implementation. We conducted an umbrella review including 15 reviews representing 543 studies. Four themes were identified that describe design-relevant factors that impact dPEx: individual context, content, technical issues, and design features. We propose a preliminary framework to explain the relationship between each factor and support user-centered design efforts. Further research is needed to identify which factors have the most impact.
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BACKGROUND The adoption and use of technology has significantly changed healthcare delivery. Patient experience has become a significant factor in the whole spectrum of patient-centered healthcare delivery. Digital Health (DH) is a... more
BACKGROUND The adoption and use of technology has significantly changed healthcare delivery. Patient experience has become a significant factor in the whole spectrum of patient-centered healthcare delivery. Digital Health (DH) is a facilitator to further improving and empowering patient experiences. The design of DH is therefore served by insights into barriers and facilitators of digital patient experience (dPEx). OBJECTIVE To systematically review influencing factors and design considerations of patient experiences (PEx) in DH from the literature, and to generate design guidelines for further improving PEx in DH. METHODS We performed an umbrella systematic review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology. We searched the Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science databases. Two rounds of small random samples (20%) were independently reviewed by two reviewers who evaluated the eligibility of the articles against the selection crite...
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Introduction Several web portals for kidney patients are available, but assessments of their performance are scarce. A crucial aspect of living donation is to provide standardised information about the risks of the procedure. This is of... more
Introduction Several web portals for kidney patients are available, but assessments of their performance are scarce. A crucial aspect of living donation is to provide standardised information about the risks of the procedure. This is of particular interest among candidates for kidney living donation. In 2019, the Digital Care Path for Living Kidney Donor Candidates was launched in Finland as part of the Health Village portal, containing information about the donation process and facilitating communication between clinicians, transplant coordinators and patients. The performance of this eHealth service has not yet been studied. The present study will investigate living donor candidates’ experience with the Health Village and Digital Care Path for Living Kidney Donor Candidates. Participants’ general attitudes towards the use of eHealth services will also be explored as a secondary objective. Methods and analysis A prospective cross-sectional survey study will take place. Participants...
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The potential of mHealth is enormous for chronic conditions, yet the integration of these technologies into the clinical infrastructures and healthcare pathways remains an ongoing challenge. Digi-HTA has been developed to support health... more
The potential of mHealth is enormous for chronic conditions, yet the integration of these technologies into the clinical infrastructures and healthcare pathways remains an ongoing challenge. Digi-HTA has been developed to support health technology assessment activities for novel digital healthcare technologies. The use of Early Health Technology Assessment (EHTA) can help product development. The present study describes the way in which EHTA can guide the development of a product to anticipate future needs and market access.
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EJISE has an open invitation for Industry practitioners to submit opinion and commentary papers. In this section we publish viewpoints of Industry experts on current or emerging industry-based Information Systems management practice, or... more
EJISE has an open invitation for Industry practitioners to submit opinion and commentary papers. In this section we publish viewpoints of Industry experts on current or emerging industry-based Information Systems management practice, or on current or emerging technologies. The objective of this section of the issue is to stimulate discussion and debate on topical Information Systems issues from an industry perspective, thereby feeding into the academic research cycle.
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Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. The use of mobile software applications for health and wellbeing promotion has grown exponentially in recent years. We systematically reviewed the breast cancer apps available in... more
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. The use of mobile software applications for health and wellbeing promotion has grown exponentially in recent years. We systematically reviewed the breast cancer apps available in today's leading smartphone application stores and characterized them based on their features, evidence base and target audiences. A cross-sectional study was performed to characterize breast cancer apps from the two major smartphone app stores (iOS and Android). Apps that matched the keywords "breast cancer" were identified and data was extracted using a structured form. Reviewers independently evaluated the eligibility and independently classified the apps. A total of 1473 apps were a match. After removing duplicates and applying the selection criteria only 599 apps remained. Inter-rater reliability was determined using Fleiss-Cohen's Kappa. The majority of apps were free 471 (78.63%). The most common type of application was Disease and Tr...
Research Interests: Engineering, Computer Science, Medical Informatics, Breast Cancer, Telemedicine, and 14 moreMedicine, Humans, Mobile apps, Chronic Disease, Female, Mobile Applications, Smartphone, mHealth and eHealth, Elsevier, Disease Management, Cross Sectional Studies, Connected Health, Breast Neoplasms, and Medical and Health Sciences
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world's most common neurologic disorders, with symptoms such as fatigue, cognitive problems, and issues with mobility. Evidence suggests that physical activity (PA) helps people with MS reduce... more
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world's most common neurologic disorders, with symptoms such as fatigue, cognitive problems, and issues with mobility. Evidence suggests that physical activity (PA) helps people with MS reduce fatigue and improve quality of life. The use of mobile technologies for health has grown in recent years with little involvement from relevant stakeholders. User-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy with the goal of creating solutions specific to the needs and tasks of the intended users. UCD involves stakeholders early and often in the design process. In a preliminary study, we assessed the landscape of commercially available MS mobile health (mHealth) apps; to our knowledge, no study has explored what persons with MS and their formal care providers think of mHealth solutions for PA. The aim of this study was to (1) explore MS-specific needs for MS mHealth solutions for PA, (2) detect perceived obstacles and facilitators for mHealth solutions ...
Research Interests: Psychology and Medicine
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world's most common neurologic disorders. Fatigue is one of most common symptoms that persons with MS experience, having significant impact on their quality of life and limiting their activity... more
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world's most common neurologic disorders. Fatigue is one of most common symptoms that persons with MS experience, having significant impact on their quality of life and limiting their activity levels. Self-management strategies are used to support them in the care of their health. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions are a way to offer persons with chronic conditions tools to successfully manage their symptoms and problems. Gamification is a current trend among mHealth apps used to create engaging user experiences and is suggested to be effective for behavioral change. To be effective, mHealth solutions need to be designed to specifically meet the intended audience needs. User-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy that proposes placing end users' needs and characteristics in the center of design and development, involving users early in the different phases of the software life cycle. There is a current gap in mHealth apps for person...
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Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women both in developed and developing countries. More than half of all cancer mobile application concern breast cancer. Gamification is widely used in mobile software applications created for... more
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women both in developed and developing countries. More than half of all cancer mobile application concern breast cancer. Gamification is widely used in mobile software applications created for health-related services. Current prevalence of gamification in breast cancer apps is unknown and detection must be manually performed. The purpose of this study is to describe and produce a tool allowing automatic detection of apps which contain gamification elements and thus empowering researchers to study gamification using large data samples. Predictive logistic regression model was designed on data extracted from breast cancer apps title and description text available in app stores. Model was validated comparing estimated and benchmark values, observed by gamification specialists. Studys outcome can be applied as a screening tool to efficiently identify gamification presence in breast cancer apps for further research.
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Increasing lifespans for chronic disease sufferers means a population of young patients who require lifestyle intervention from an early age. For multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, social problems begin with the decline of cognitive skills... more
Increasing lifespans for chronic disease sufferers means a population of young patients who require lifestyle intervention from an early age. For multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, social problems begin with the decline of cognitive skills and their quality of life is affected. In this workshop, organizers will propose participants to work on different gamification design approachs to solve MS patients' engagement problem. Participants will obtain skills that can be extrapolated to other conditions that require patients change to adopt a different behavior. At the end, participants will present their proposed gamification design and discuss and comment each solution, assessing potential unintended outcomes and advantages.
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Healthcare emphasizes the importance to treat each healthcare user as a unique individual. This paper reports a case study, where we asked healthcare professionals to rationalize their work practices and the role of information technology... more
Healthcare emphasizes the importance to treat each healthcare user as a unique individual. This paper reports a case study, where we asked healthcare professionals to rationalize their work practices and the role of information technology (IT) once they meet with a healthcare user seeking for help. In the interviews with the healthcare professionals, aspects of personalization elements emerged without being prompted. We analyzed these emerging elements and categorized them thematically to provide insights to the technology-driven field of personalization with a service-level perspective. Our results provide understanding that can be used in the design of IT solutions that can support personalization of services in healthcare.
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ABSTRACT Student Design Challenge Finalists
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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Social media could be valuable tools to support people with multiple sclerosis (MS). There is little evidence on the MS-related topics that are discussed on social media, and the sentiment linked to these topics.... more
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Social media could be valuable tools to support people with multiple sclerosis (MS). There is little evidence on the MS-related topics that are discussed on social media, and the sentiment linked to these topics. The objective of this work is to identify the MS-related main topics discussed on Twitter, and the sentiment linked to them. METHODS Tweets dealing with MS in the English language were extracted. Latent-Dirilecht Allocation (LDA) was used to identify the main topics discussed in these tweets. Iterative inductive process was used to group the tweets into recurrent topics. The sentiment analysis of these tweets was performed using SentiStrength. RESULTS LDA' identified topics were grouped into 4 categories, tweets dealing with: related chronic conditions; condition burden; disease-modifying drugs; and awareness-raising. Tweets on condition burden and related chronic conditions were the most negative (p<0.001). A significant lower positive senti...
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This paper reports a case study on the spontaneous personalization discussions emerged from interviews with healthcare professionals when asked about their work practices and the role of information technology (IT) during consultations.... more
This paper reports a case study on the spontaneous personalization discussions emerged from interviews with healthcare professionals when asked about their work practices and the role of information technology (IT) during consultations. We thematically analyzed the personalization elements using an existing personalization framework to provide insights on the service personalization. Our results contribute to the better design of IT solutions that can support health services' personalization.
Background Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders leading to severe disability in young adults. MS-related fatigue directly impacts on the quality of life and activity levels of people with MS.... more
Background Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders leading to severe disability in young adults. MS-related fatigue directly impacts on the quality of life and activity levels of people with MS. Self-management strategies are used to support them in the care of their health. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions can offer tools to help symptom management. Following a user-centered design and evidence-based process, an mHealth solution called More Stamina was created to help persons with MS manage their fatigue. Objective The overall study aims are to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of More Stamina, a mobile app for fatigue self-management for persons with MS. Methods A mixed-methods, multicenter study will be used to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of More Stamina. The study will take place during the third and fourth quarters of 2020 (Q3-Q4 2020) in 3 locations: Argentina, Spain, and Switzerland. A longit...
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Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders. Social media have been proposed as a way to maintain and even increase social interaction for people with MS. The objective of this work is to... more
Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders. Social media have been proposed as a way to maintain and even increase social interaction for people with MS. The objective of this work is to identify and compare the topics on Twitter during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Data was collected using the Twitter API between 9/2/2019 and 13/5/2020. SentiStrength was used to analyze data with the day that the pandemic was declared used as a turning point. Frequency-inverse document frequency (tf-idf) was used for each unigram and calculated the gains in tf-idf value. A comparative analysis of the relevance of words and categories among the datasets was performed. Results: The original dataset contained over 610k tweets, our final dataset had 147,963 tweets. After the 10th of march some categories gained relevance in positive tweets (“Healthcare professional”, “Chronic conditions”, “Condition burden”), while in negative tweets “Em...
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UNSTRUCTURED The physical and social distancing measures that have been adopted worldwide because of COVID-19 will probably remain in place for a long time, especially for senior adults, people with chronic conditions, and other at-risk... more
UNSTRUCTURED The physical and social distancing measures that have been adopted worldwide because of COVID-19 will probably remain in place for a long time, especially for senior adults, people with chronic conditions, and other at-risk populations. Teleconsultations can be useful in ensuring that patients continue to receive clinical care while reducing physical crowding and avoiding unnecessary exposure of health care staff. Implementation processes that typically take months of planning, budgeting, pilot testing, and education were compressed into days. However, in the urgency to deal with the present crisis, we may be forgetting that the introduction of digital health is not exclusively a technological issue, but part of a complex organizational change problem. This viewpoint offers insight regarding issues that rapidly adopted teleconsultation systems may face in a post–COVID-19 world.
The physical and social distancing measures that have been adopted worldwide because of COVID-19 will probably remain in place for a long time, especially for senior adults, people with chronic conditions, and other at-risk populations.... more
The physical and social distancing measures that have been adopted worldwide because of COVID-19 will probably remain in place for a long time, especially for senior adults, people with chronic conditions, and other at-risk populations. Teleconsultations can be useful in ensuring that patients continue to receive clinical care while reducing physical crowding and avoiding unnecessary exposure of health care staff. Implementation processes that typically take months of planning, budgeting, pilot testing, and education were compressed into days. However, in the urgency to deal with the present crisis, we may be forgetting that the introduction of digital health is not exclusively a technological issue, but part of a complex organizational change problem. This viewpoint offers insight regarding issues that rapidly adopted teleconsultation systems may face in a post–COVID-19 world.
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BACKGROUND Chronic conditions are the leading cause of death in the world. Major improvements in acute care and diagnostics have created a tendency toward the chronification of formerly terminal conditions, requiring people with these... more
BACKGROUND Chronic conditions are the leading cause of death in the world. Major improvements in acute care and diagnostics have created a tendency toward the chronification of formerly terminal conditions, requiring people with these conditions to learn how to self-manage. Mobile technologies hold promise as self-management tools due to their ubiquity and cost-effectiveness. The delivery of health-related services through mobile technologies (mobile health, mHealth) has grown exponentially in recent years. However, only a fraction of these solutions take into consideration the views of relevant stakeholders such as health care professionals or even patients. The use of behavioral change models (BCMs) has proven important in developing successful health solutions, yet engaging patients remains a challenge. There is a trend in mHealth solutions called gamification that attempts to use game elements to drive user behavior and increase engagement. As it stands, designers of mHealth sol...
BACKGROUND Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders of the young adults leading to severe disability. MS Fatigue impacts directly on the quality of life and activity levels of people with MS.... more
BACKGROUND Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders of the young adults leading to severe disability. MS Fatigue impacts directly on the quality of life and activity levels of people with MS. Self-management strategies are used to support them in the care of their health. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions can offer tools to help symptom management. Following a user-centered design and evidence-based process, a mHealth solution called More Stamina was created to help persons with MS manage their fatigue OBJECTIVE The overall study aims are to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of More Stamina, a mobile app for fatigue self-management for persons with MS. METHODS A mixed methods multicenter study will be used to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of More Stamina. The study will take place during the first and second quarters of 2020 (Q1-Q2 2020) in three locations: Argentina, Spain and Switzerland. A longitudin...
BACKGROUND Advanced sensor, measurement and analytics technologies enable entirely new ways to deliver care. Increased availability of digital data can be used for data-driven personalization of care. Data-driven personalization can... more
BACKGROUND Advanced sensor, measurement and analytics technologies enable entirely new ways to deliver care. Increased availability of digital data can be used for data-driven personalization of care. Data-driven personalization can complement expert-driven personalization by providing support for decision making, or even automating some parts of decision making in relation to the care process. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to analyze how digital data acquired from posture scanning can enhance physiotherapy and enable more personalized delivery of physiotherapy. METHODS A Case study is conducted with a company that has designed a Posture Scan Recording System (PSRS), which is an Information System (IS) that can record, measure and report human movement digitally to be used in physiotherapy. Interviews are used to explore the viewpoints of different stakeholders involved in physiotherapy. The data is analyzed thematically. RESULTS As the result of our thematic analysis, we ident...
Background Health information technologies (HITs) such as electronic health records (EHR) and telemedicine services are currently used to assist clinicians provide care to patients. There are many barriers to HIT adoption, including... more
Background Health information technologies (HITs) such as electronic health records (EHR) and telemedicine services are currently used to assist clinicians provide care to patients. There are many barriers to HIT adoption, including mismatches between investments and benefits, disruptions in the workflow, and concerns about privacy and confidentiality. The lack of HIT training of health professionals as a workforce is an increasingly recognized and understudied barrier. Objective The purpose of this study is to describe what courses on HIT topics are available at the graduate level for future health professionals in the European Union (EU) and to explore possible determining factors for their exposure to these courses. Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study of EU medical schools was performed to explore the prevalence of HIT courses. The curricula of all identified higher learning institutions that offer a medical degree were manually explored to identify graduate-level courses...
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BACKGROUND Smart Health technologies (s-Health technologies) are being developed to support people with dementia (PwD) and their informal caregivers at home, to improve care and reduce the levels of burden and stress they experience.... more
BACKGROUND Smart Health technologies (s-Health technologies) are being developed to support people with dementia (PwD) and their informal caregivers at home, to improve care and reduce the levels of burden and stress they experience. However, although s-Health technologies have the potential to facilitate this, the factors influencing a successful implementation in this population are still unknown. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to review existing literature to explore the factors influencing PwD and their informal caregivers’ adoption of s-Health technologies for home care. METHODS Following the Arksey and O’Malley methodology, this study is a scoping review providing a narrative description of the scientific literature on factors influencing s-Health technology adoption for PwD and their informal caregivers. A search was conducted using PubMed, the Cochrane library, the IEEE library, and Scopus. Publications screening was conducted by 2 researchers based on inclusion criteri...
BACKGROUND This paper examines the development of the Connected Health research landscape with a view on providing a historical perspective on existing Connected Health research. Connected Health has become a rapidly growing research... more
BACKGROUND This paper examines the development of the Connected Health research landscape with a view on providing a historical perspective on existing Connected Health research. Connected Health has become a rapidly growing research field as our healthcare system is facing pressured to become more proactive and patient centred. OBJECTIVE We aimed to identify the extent and coverage of the current body of knowledge in Connected Health. With this, we want to identify which topics have drawn the attention of Connected health researchers, and if there are gaps or interdisciplinary opportunities for further research. METHODS We used a systematic mapping study that combines scientific contributions from research on medicine, business, computer science and engineering. We analyse the papers with seven classification criteria, publication source, publication year, research types, empirical types, contribution types research topic and the condition studied in the paper. RESULTS Altogether, ...
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Chronic conditions are the leading cause of death in the world. Major improvements in acute care and diagnostics have created a tendency toward the chronification of formerly terminal conditions, requiring people with these conditions to... more
Chronic conditions are the leading cause of death in the world. Major improvements in acute care and diagnostics have created a tendency toward the chronification of formerly terminal conditions, requiring people with these conditions to learn how to self-manage. Mobile technologies hold promise as self-management tools due to their ubiquity and cost-effectiveness. The delivery of health-related services through mobile technologies (mobile health, mHealth) has grown exponentially in recent years. However, only a fraction of these solutions take into consideration the views of relevant stakeholders such as health care professionals or even patients. The use of behavioral change models (BCMs) has proven important in developing successful health solutions, yet engaging patients remains a challenge. There is a trend in mHealth solutions called gamification that attempts to use game elements to drive user behavior and increase engagement. As it stands, designers of mHealth solutions for ...
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Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a non-curable chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system that affects more than 2 million people worldwide. MS-related symptoms impact negatively on the quality of life of persons... more
Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a non-curable chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system that affects more than 2 million people worldwide. MS-related symptoms impact negatively on the quality of life of persons with MS, who need to be active in the management of their health. mHealth apps could support these patient groups by offering useful tools, providing reliable information, and monitoring symptoms. A previous study from this group identified needs, barriers, and facilitators for the use of mHealth solutions among persons with MS. It is unknown how commercially available health apps meet these needs.
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— Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an unpredictable, often disabling disease that can adversely affect any body function; this often requires persons with MS to be active patients who are able to self-manage. There are currently thousands of... more
— Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an unpredictable, often disabling disease that can adversely affect any body function; this often requires persons with MS to be active patients who are able to self-manage. There are currently thousands of health applications available but it is unknown how many concern MS. We conducted a systematic review of all MS apps present in the most popular app stores (iTunes and Google Play store) on June 2016 to identify all relevant MS apps. After discarding non-MS related apps and duplicates, only a total of 25 MS apps were identified. App description contents and features were explored to assess target audience, functionalities, and developing entities. The vast majority of apps were focused on disease and treatment information with disease management being a close second. This is the first study that reviews MS apps and it highlights an interesting gap in the current repertoire of MS mHealth resources.
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—Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women both in developed and developing countries. More than half of all cancer mobile application concern breast cancer. Gamification is widely used in mobile software applications created for... more
—Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women both in developed and developing countries. More than half of all cancer mobile application concern breast cancer. Gamification is widely used in mobile software applications created for health-related services. Current prevalence of gamification in breast cancer apps is unknown and detection must be manually performed. The purpose of this study is to describe and produce a tool allowing automatic detection of apps which contain gamification elements and thus empowering researchers to study gamification using large data samples. Predictive logistic regression model was designed on data extracted from breast cancer apps' title and description text available in app stores. Model was validated comparing estimated and benchmark values, observed by gamification specialists. Study's outcome can be applied as a screening tool to efficiently identify gamification presence in breast cancer apps for further research.
Research Interests:
Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. The use of mobile software applications for health and wellbeing promotion has grown exponentially in recent years. We systematically reviewed the breast cancer apps available... more
Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. The use of mobile software applications for health and wellbeing promotion has grown exponentially in recent years. We systematically reviewed the breast cancer apps available in today's leading smartphone application stores and characterized them based on their features, evidence base and target audiences. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed to characterize breast cancer apps from the two major smart-phone app stores (iOS and Android). Apps that matched the keywords " breast cancer " were identified and data was extracted using a structured form. Reviewers independently evaluated the eligibility and independently classified the apps. Results: A total of 1473 apps were a match. After removing duplicates and applying the selection criteria only 599 apps remained. Inter-rater reliability was determined using Fleiss-Cohen's Kappa. The majority of apps were free 471 (78.63%). The most common type of application was Disease and Treatment information apps (29.22%), Disease Management (19.03%) and Awareness Raising apps (15.03%). Close to 1 out of 10 apps dealt with alternative or homeopathic medicine. The majority of the apps were intended for patients (75.79%). Only one quarter of all apps (24.54%) had a disclaimer about usage and less than one fifth (19.70%) mentioned references or source material. Gamification specialists determined that 19.36% contained gamification elements. Conclusions: This study analyzed a large number of breast cancer-focused apps available to consumers. There has been a steady increase of breast cancer apps over the years. The breast cancer app ecosystem largely consists of start-ups and entrepreneurs. Evidence base seems to be lacking in these apps and it would seem essential that expert medical personnel be involved in the creation of medical apps
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Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world's most common neurologic disorders. Fatigue is one of most common symptoms that persons with MS experience, having significant impact on their quality of life and limiting their... more
Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world's most common neurologic disorders. Fatigue is one of most common symptoms that persons with MS experience, having significant impact on their quality of life and limiting their activity levels. Self-management strategies are used to support them in the care of their health. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions are a way to offer persons with chronic conditions tools to successfully manage their symptoms and problems. Gamification is a current trend among mHealth apps used to create engaging user experiences and is suggested to be effective for behavioral change. To be effective, mHealth solutions need to be designed to specifically meet the intended audience needs. User-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy that proposes placing end users' needs and characteristics in the center of design and development, involving users early in the different phases of the software life cycle. There is a current gap in mHealth apps for persons with MS, which presents an interesting area to explore.
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Increasing lifespans for chronic disease sufferers means a population of young patients who require lifestyle intervention from an early age. For multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, social problems begin with the decline of cognitive skills... more
Increasing lifespans for chronic disease sufferers means a population of young patients who require lifestyle intervention from an early age. For multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, social problems begin with the decline of cognitive skills and their quality of life is affected. In this workshop, organizers will propose participants to work on different gamification design approachs to solve MS patients' engagement problem. Participants will obtain skills that can be extrapolated to other conditions that require patients change to adopt a different behavior. At the end, participants will present their proposed gamification design and discuss and comment each solution, assessing potential unintended outcomes and advantages.