Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jul 27, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 14, 2022 - Aug 4, 2022
Date Accepted: May 25, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
The Effectiveness of a Traditional Chinese Medicine-based Mobile Health Application for Individuals with Prediabetes: A Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theories assert that body constitution and meridian energy lay the foundation for disease prevention. TCM-based health concepts have not been incorporated into the mHealth app for persons with prediabetes.
Objective:
The study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a TCM mHealth app for individuals with prediabetes.
Methods:
This randomized controlled trial recruited 121 individuals with prediabetes at a teaching hospital in New Taipei City between February 2020 and May 2021. The participants were randomly assigned to TCM mHealth app (n=42), ordinary mHealth app (n=41), or control group (n=38). The ordinary mHealth app included physical activity (PA), diet, disease education, and individual records. The TCM m-Health app additionally included qi and body constitution as well as constitution-based PA and diet advices. The control group did not receive apps. Data were collected at baseline, the end of the 12-weeks intervention, and 1 month after the intervention. Body constitution was measured by the body constitution questionnaire, which yielded yang-deficiency, ying-deficiency, and phlegm-stasis, with higher scores indicating a greater deficiency. Meridian energy was examined by using the Meridian Energy Analysis Device. The Short-Form 36 was used to evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQOL), which yielded physical component scores (PCS) and mental component scores (MCS), with higher scores indicating better physical and mental aspects of HRQOL, respectively.
Results:
Compared to the control group, the TCM mHealth app group had a significant improvement after the intervention in yang-deficiency ( =-3.15, P=.04) and phlegm-stasis ( =-3.45, P=.04) body constitution, bladder ( =10.79, P =.02) and gallbladder meridian energy ( =13.10, P =.01), PCS ( =4.93, P=.001), and MCS ( =8.11, P<.001). They also improved greater in HbA1c ( =-0.11, P =.03), body mass index (BMI, =-0.37, P =.04), small intestine meridian energy ( =16.38, p=.04), phlegm-stasis body constitution ( =-3.30, P =.02), PCS ( =4.89, P=.001), and MCS ( =7.26, P<.001) at 1 month after the intervention compared to the control group. The ordinary mHealth app group had a greater increase in MCS ( =4.63, P =.02) at the end of intervention compared to the control group.
Conclusions:
The TCM mHealth app can be used in health management for individuals with prediabetes to improve their blood sugar control, BMI, body constitution, meridian energy, and HRQOL. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04096989; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/ NCT04096989
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.