Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Oct 30, 2023
Date Accepted: Feb 27, 2024
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Efficacy of the Flo app in improving health literacy, menstrual and general health, and wellbeing in women: a randomized controlled trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Reproductive health literacy and menstrual health awareness play a crucial role in ensuring the health and wellbeing of women and people who menstruate. Further, awareness of one’s own patterns and symptoms can help individuals identify and manage conditions of the menstrual cycle such as premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Digital health products, and specifically menstrual health apps, have the potential to effect positive change due to their scalability and ease of access.
Objective:
The primary aim of the current study was to measure the efficacy of a menstrual and reproductive health app, Flo, in improving health literacy and health and wellbeing outcomes in menstruating individuals with and without PMS and PMDD. Further, we explored the possibility that use of the Flo app could positively influence feelings around reproductive health management and communication about health, menstrual cycle stigma, unplanned pregnancies, quality of life, productivity at work, and body image.
Methods:
We conducted two three-month, unblinded pilot, two-armed, randomized controlled trials on the effects of using the Flo application in 1) individuals who track their cycles and 2) individuals who track their cycles and are affected by PMS/PMDD.
Results:
Findings revealed significant improvements at the end of the study period in our primary outcomes of health literacy and menstrual health awareness, health and wellbeing, and PMS/PMDD symptoms burden. Improvements were also observed for our secondary outcomes of feelings of control and management over health, communication about health, menstrual cycle stigma, and fear of unplanned pregnancies for those who track their cycles as well as absenteeism from work and education due to PMS/PMDD.
Conclusions:
Digital health products, such as the Flo app, have shown promise in filling important gaps in current healthcare provisioning. Solutions focused on providing users educational content and symptom self tracking functionality can effectively improve menstrual and reproductive health literacy as well as overall health and wellbeing.
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Copyright
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