Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jul 19, 2021
Date Accepted: Oct 27, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Nov 2, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
An alternative to the ‘light touch’ digital health remote study: The Stress and Recovery in Frontline COVID-19 Healthcare Workers Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
Several app-based studies share similar characteristics of a ‘light touch’ approach that recruit, enroll, and onboard via a smartphone app and attempt to minimize burden through low-friction active study tasks, while emphasizing the collection of passive data with minimal human contact. However, engagement is a common challenge across these studies reporting low retention and adherence.
Objective:
To describe an alternative to a ‘light touch’ digital health study that involved a participant centric design including high friction app-based assessments, semi-continuous passive data from wearable sensors and a digital engagement strategy centered on providing knowledge and support to participants.
Methods:
The Stress and Recovery in Frontline COVID-19 Healthcare Workers Study included US frontline healthcare workers followed between May-November 2020. The study comprised 3 main components: 1) active and passive assessments of stress and symptoms from a smartphone app; 2) objective measured assessments of acute stress from wearable sensors; and 3) a participant co-driven engagement strategy that centered on providing knowledge and support to participants. The daily participant time commitment was an average of 10-15 minutes. Retention and adherence are described both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Results:
Results:
365 participants enrolled and started the study and 81.0% (297/365) of them completed the study for a total study duration of 4 months. Average wearable sensor usage was 90.6% days of total study duration. App-based daily, weekly, and every other week surveys were completed on average 69.18%, 68.37%, 72.86% of the time, respectively.
Conclusions:
Conclusions:
This study found evidence for feasibility and acceptability of a participant centric digital health study approach that involved building trust and respect with participants and providing support through regular phone check-ins. In addition to high retention and adherence, the collection of large volumes of objective measured data alongside contextual self-reported subjective data was able to be collected that is often missing from ‘light touch’ digital health studies. Clinical Trial: Clinicaltrials.Gov (NCT04713111)
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