JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Digitally supported self-management tailored to the individual's need, in addition to usual care, can reduce pain-related disability compared to usual care alone. Hence, implementing mHealth solutions designed to support self-management are from a clinical and patient perspective desirable. Easily accessible mHealth solutions that can be used to support self-management of patients with LBP are available, but the number of patients using mHealth is limited and the interest may be subgroup specific. The acceptance and utilization of mHealth interventions among patients with LBP is not well-understood and the literature are scarce and contradictory. Understanding the characteristics and preferences of LBP patients interested in mHealth solutions may help to reach relevant LBP patient groups and inform the development and implementation of effective interventions with mHealth for patients with LBP.

Objective:

The aim of this study is to explore the proportion of patients with low back pain (LBP) that showed interest in using a mHealth solution designed to support self-management in addition to usual care and to assess how these patients differ from those who were not interested

Methods:

This exploratory cross-sectional study utilized demographic and patient reported outcomes from the SpineData registry, a Danish registry of patients with LBP at an outpatient setting. Between February 2019 and December 2019, the SpineData registry was used to recruit and assess preliminary eligibility of patients for a clinical trial (selfBACK). Patients were dichotomized as interested or uninterested pending on response to an invitation to the selfBACK trial. Outcomes were selected from the International Classification of Functioning core set of LBP using a clinical approach. Associations were assessed in a backward selection process, and the proportion of variance explained was assessed with pseudo R2 statistic.

Results:

Approximatly 21% of patients were interested in an mHealth solution designed to support selfmanagement. The interested patients differed from uninterested patients on two characteristics; Age (interested 65.2% and uninterested 54.9% 65+ years P= 0.01) and smoker status (interested 14.9% and uninterested 27.5% smoked p <.001). An association was found between patients interest and being 65+ years of age (95% OR 1.42 CI 1.125, 1.791 crude R2=0.01) and non-smokers (OR 0.46 CI 0.296, 0.720 crude R2 P=0.01). However, the associations; age and smoker status only explained 2.5% of the proportion of variance between the interested and uninterested patients.

Conclusions:

Our study identified that 21% of patients with LBP invited to use a mHealth solution to support self-management were interested. Overall the interested and uninterested persons were similar. An interesting finding was that patients 65 years or older was more freqentluy interested in the mhealth solution. Thus, older persons may be more interested in adopting mhealth solutions than otherwise expected. Clinical Trial: This study was exploratory.