JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Little is known about women’s decisions around toileting for urination and how those decisions influence moment-to-moment behaviors to manage bladder needs. The new smartphone application Where I Go captures such nuanced and granular data in real-world environments.

Objective:

Describe participant engagement with Where I Go, variation in novel parameters collected, and readiness for the data collection tool’s use in population-based studies.

Methods:

Where I Go has three components: a) real-time, b) short look-back periods (3-4 hours), and c) event location (GPS recorded at each interaction). Sample size was forty-four women. Recording of real-time toileting events and responding to look-back questions was measured over 2-days of data collection. The participant’s self-entered location descriptions and the automatic GPS recordings were compared.

Results:

Real-time reporting of at least one toileting event per day was high (86% day 1, 91% day 2) with median of 5 toileting events recorded each day. Response to at least one look-back notification was similarly high (93% day 1, 95% day 2). The most common self-reported toileting locations were “home” (61% day 1, 75% day 2) and “workplace” (24% day 1, 15% day 2). The most common reasons for delaying toileting were “work duties” and “errands or traveling”. For actual toileting the most common reason was “a need to go” (66% day 1, 74% day 2). Overall concordance between self-reported location recording and GPS was 87%.

Conclusions:

Where I Go has potential to increase understanding of factors that affect women’s toileting decisions and potentially long-term bladder health. We anticipate its use as a data collection tool in population-based studies. Clinical Trial: not applicable