JMIR Research Protocols

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy is a complex time characterised by major transformations in the woman, which impact her physical, mental, and social well-being. How a woman adapts to these changes can affect her quality of life and psychological well-being. Indeed, the literature reports how pregnant women experience various psychological symptoms, the most frequent and common of which are symptoms of anxiety, stress, and/or depression. Indeed, promoting a healthy lifestyle focused on a woman's psychological well-being is crucial...

BACKGROUND: Rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) are chronic diseases that may alternate between asymptomatic periods and flares. These conditions require complex treatments and close monitoring by rheumatologists to adjust their effects and improve patient quality of life. Many times, delays in outpatient consultations or patient´s difficulties in keeping appointments make such close follow-up problematic. For this reason, it is very important to have fluid communication channels between patients and health professionals...

BACKGROUND: Older adults are frequently hospitalized. Family involvement during these hospitalizations is incompletely characterized in the literature. OBJECTIVE: To better understand how families are involved in the care of hospitalized older adults and to develop a conceptual model describing the phenomenon of family involvement in the care of hospitalized older adults. METHODS: We describe the protocol of a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES), a systematic review of qualitative studies...

BACKGROUND: Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) remains an unmet medical challenge. Approximately 20-25% of patients with mCRPC harbour a deleterious germline or somatic mutation in the homologous recombination repair (HRR) pathway genes, which is involved in the repair of double-stranded DNA damage. Half of these mutations are germline, while the remaining are exclusively somatic. While poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, like olaparib and rucaparib, are effective in this subgroup, their widespread use is limited due to the associated high cost, especially in resource-constrained settings...

BACKGROUND: Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) is a rare group of lymphomas that primarily affects the skin. Mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most common form of CTCL and Sézary syndrome (SS) is more infrequent. Early stages (IA-IIA) have a favorable prognosis, while advanced stages (IIB-IVB) have a worse prognosis. Around 25% of patients with early stages of disease will progress to advanced stages. Malignant skin-infiltrating T-cells in CTCL are accompanied by infiltrates of non-malignant T-cells and other immune cells that produce cytokines that modulate the inflammation...

BACKGROUND: The Center for Disease Control's Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries (STEADI) offers healthcare providers tools and resources to assist with fall risk screening and multifactorial fall risk assessment and interventions. It's effectiveness has never been evaluated in a randomized trial. OBJECTIVE: To describe the protocol for the Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries (STEADI ) Options Randomized Quality Improvement Trial (RQIT) which was designed to evaluate the impact on falls and all-cause health expenditures of a telemedicine-based form of STEADI implemented among older adults, 65 years and older, within a primary care setting...

BACKGROUND: In observational studies and randomized trials from low-income countries, the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine against tuberculosis has been associated with beneficial non-specific effects. The likely mechanism behind these effects is innate immune training. Until 2016, a single dose of BCG vaccine was administered to all newborns in Portugal. In July 2016, a clinical guideline established that only children under 6 years belonging to high-risk groups should receive BCG...

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes poses public health challenges for Māori and Pasifika communities in Australia. The women of these communities face a greater burden from type 2 diabetes-related mortality and comorbidities. Lifestyle modification behaviours through previous women's wellness programs have been shown to reduce risk of developing complications in established type 2 diabetes. The Pasifika Women's Diabetes Wellness Program (PWDWP) pilot study, co-designed with Māori and Pasifika communities, was aimed at addressing late hospital presentations from diabetes-related complications...

BACKGROUND: Literature suggests that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer and Allied (LGBTQIA+) individuals encounter challenges with access and engagement with health services. Studies have reported that LGBTQIA+ individuals' experiences stigma, discrimination and health workers' micro aggression when accessing healthcare. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the LGBTQIA+ community are faced with disproportionate rates of HIV infection, mental health disorders, substance abuse and other non-communicable diseases...

BACKGROUND: Social media is essential in the lives of adolescents, with 97% of US teenagers engaging daily. While it facilitates communication, learning, and identity development, it also poses risks like harmful content exposure and psychological distress, particularly for adolescents in their critical developmental stage. Teaching digital life skills innovatively counters these risks, adapting traditional competencies such as decision-making, problem-solving, creative and critical thinking, communication, interpersonal skills, self-awareness, empathy, and emotional and stress management to digital challenges...

BACKGROUND: Chronic pain affects approximately 8 million Canadians (~20%), impacting their physical and mental health while burdening the health care system with costs of upwards of US $60 billion a year. Indeed, patients are often trialed on numerous medications over several years without reductions to their symptoms. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify new therapies for chronic pain to improve patients' quality of life, increase the availability of treatment options, and reduce the burden on the health care system...

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened the focus on health care safety and quality, underscoring the importance of using standardized metrics such as the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). In this regard, the ICD-10 cluster Y62-Y69 serves as a proxy assessment of safety and quality in health care systems, allowing researchers to evaluate medical misadventures. Thus far, extensive research and reports support the need for more attention to safety and quality in health care...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/51683.].

BACKGROUND: Many of the challenges in advanced care planning (ACP) conversations are linked to the waxing and waning progress of serious illnesses. Conversations with patients about future medical care decisions by a surrogate decision maker have historically been left until late in the patient's disease trajectory. These conversations often happen at a time when the patient is already very ill. The challenge in effective early ACP and serious illness conversations is to create a situation where patients appreciate the link between current and future medical care...

BACKGROUND: Fatigue is the most common symptom in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and long COVID, impacting patients' quality of life; however, there is currently a lack of evidence-based context-aware tools for fatigue self-management in these populations. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to (1) address fatigue in ME/CFS and long COVID through the development of digital mobile health solutions for self-management, (2) predict perceived fatigue severity using real-time data, and (3) assess the feasibility and potential benefits of personalized digital mobile health solutions...

BACKGROUND: Long wait times in the emergency department (ED) are a major issue for health care systems all over the world. The application of artificial intelligence (AI) is a novel strategy to reduce ED wait times when compared to the interventions included in previous research endeavors. To date, comprehensive systematic reviews that include studies involving AI applications in the context of EDs have covered a wide range of AI implementation issues. However, the lack of an iterative update strategy limits the use of these reviews...

BACKGROUND: Physical activity and exercise are important aspects of maintaining health. People with mobility impairments, including survivors of stroke, are less likely to exercise and at greater risk of developing or worsening chronic health conditions. Increasing accessible, desired options for exercise may address the gap in available physical activity programs, provide an opportunity for continued services after rehabilitation, and cultivate social connections for people after stroke and others with mobility impairments...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/53722.].

BACKGROUND: Concussion in children and adolescents is a significant public health concern, with 30% to 35% of patients at risk for prolonged emotional, cognitive, sleep, or physical symptoms. These symptoms negatively impact a child's quality of life while interfering with their participation in important neurodevelopmental activities such as schoolwork, socializing, and sports. Early psychological intervention following a concussion may improve the ability to regulate emotions and adapt to postinjury symptoms, resulting in the greater acceptance of change; reduced stress; and recovery of somatic, emotional, and cognitive symptoms...

BACKGROUND: Particularly in rural regions, factors such as lower physician density and long travel distances complicate adequate outpatient care. However, urban regions can also be affected by deficits in care, for example, long waiting times. One model of care intending to improve the situation is the implementation of video consultations. The study protocol presents the methodology of the research project titled "Preference-based implementation of the video consultation in urban and rural regions" funded by the German Federal Joint Committee (funding number 01VSF20011)...