JMIR Human Factors

Entrapment of sickled red blood cells in the microvasculature leads to sudden painful vaso-occlusive crises (VOC) in sickle cell disease (SCD). This is potentially triggered by autonomic nervous system mediated vasoconstriction in peripheral vasculature and resultant decrease in microvascular blood flow. Indeed, vasoconstriction biomarkers derived from a single night of laboratory-based fingertip photoplethysmography (PPG) recording were predictive of higher frequency of future VOC in SCD. Non-invasive, remote and longitudinal monitoring of autonomic vasoreactivity will facilitate development of predictive biomarkers of imminent VOC.

South Asian communities in Canada face significant disparities in access to healthcare and experience higher rates of chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Hospital-at-home services have the potential to improve access and outcomes, yet little is known about how these services are perceived and experienced by South Asian patients and caregivers. Understanding both barriers and facilitators is critical for culturally responsive implementation.

Technology-assisted 24-hour dietary recall (24HR) methods offer the potential for scalable population dietary assessment, but current challenges include balancing accuracy and cost against participant burden and acceptability of these methods. Qualitative methods present a novel approach to understanding potential barriers and enablers to the acceptability of 24HR methods, but remain relatively unexplored.

Dementia increases the risk of individuals getting lost due to cognitive decline, impacting daily functioning and heightening caregiver worry. Traditional search methods are often time-consuming and stressful, while GPS-based technologies face limitations like battery dependency. A crowdsourcing Internet of Things (IoT) technology using energy-efficient Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) offers a potential solution to locate missing individuals with dementia more effectively by harnessing the power of the crowd and fostering a caring and inclusive community.

Although research has found online peer support forums to be helpful for those with mental health conditions, no studies have explored the experiences of those who use forums for support with postpartum psychosis (PP) specifically.

Making optimal use of mobile health technologies requires the validation of digital biomarkers, which demands high levels of participant adherence and retention. However, current remote digital health studies have high attrition rates and low participant adherence, which may introduce bias and limit the generalizability of the findings.

Despite the promise of digital therapeutics in providing scalable interventions for psychosis, translating them from clinical trials to routine care is challenging. SloMo is an evidence-based, digitally supported cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis comprising a web-based therapy platform and mobile app. The therapy encourages individuals to slow down for a moment, to address fast-thinking habits fueling paranoia. SloMo has received a NICE Early Value Assessment recommendation for use in the National Health Service to address evidence gaps related to its use in the real world, and an implementation study is underway.

Telemedicine services have been developing rapidly worldwide. Following the 2018 policy enabling telemedicine for follow-up patients, this service model has gradually gained popularity in China. However, little has been done to understand the policy’s implementation across different types of medical institutions or to evaluate its effectiveness.

Trust in AI remains a critical barrier to adoption of artificial Intelligence (AI) in mental health care. This study explores the formation of trust in an AI mental health model and its human–computer interface (HCI) among clinicians at an online mental health clinic in the Region of Southern Denmark with national coverage.

Technology is rapidly reshaping conventional hospital environments into smart spaces, enhancing care, improving clinical workflows, and reducing workloads. However, successful implementation depends not only on the effectiveness of the technology but also on organizational readiness for change.

Health messages are integral to smoking cessation interventions. Common approaches to health message development include expert-crafted messages and audience-generated messages, which produce messages that can be monotonic, didactic, and limited in number. We introduce an alternative approach to health message development that relies on user-generated content available on open content platforms as a source of health messages.

Although various applications (apps) have been developed to support health behaviors, they are mostly commercial, possibly limiting the number of users. The ME-BYO index was developed by Kanagawa Prefecture in 2019 to comprehensively and numerically measure and visualize an individual's current health status and future disease risk by quantifying data. The ME-BYO index is free of charge, so it can be made available to as many prefectural residents as possible for health promotion. Effective online strength training programs are being developed that, when combined with ME-BYO index measurements, will help with both exercise habits and health management.