Maintenance Notice

Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Who will be affected?

Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors

Date Submitted: Mar 18, 2024
Date Accepted: Nov 26, 2024

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Using a Mobile Health App (ColonClean) to Enhance the Effectiveness of Bowel Preparation: Development and Usability Study

Chen HY, Tu MH, Chen MY

Using a Mobile Health App (ColonClean) to Enhance the Effectiveness of Bowel Preparation: Development and Usability Study

JMIR Hum Factors 2025;12:e58479

DOI: 10.2196/58479

PMID: 39791869

PMCID: 11735013

Using the Mobile Health App to Enhance the Effectiveness of Bowel Preparation: Development and Usability Study

  • Hui-Yu Chen; 
  • Ming-Hsiang Tu; 
  • Miao-Yen Chen

ABSTRACT

Background:

Colonoscopy is the standard diagnostic method for colorectal cancer. Patients usually receive written and verbal instructions for bowel preparation (BP) before the procedure. Failure to understand the importance of BP can lead to inadequate levels of over 25% to 30%. Quality of BP impacts the success of colonoscopy in diagnostic yield and adenoma detection.

Objective:

we developed the "ColonClean" mobile health (mHealth) application (app) for Android devices. It incorporates visual representations of dietary guidelines, steps for using bowel cleansing agents, and observations of the last bowel movement.

Methods:

We used the technology acceptance model (TAM) to investigate whether using the ColonClean mHealth app can enhance users' attitudes and behaviors towards BP. The study is aimed to investigate the correlation among perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude toward usage, and actual usage behavior. Forty outpatients who were physically and mentally healthy and proficient in Chinese were randomly chosen for this study. The data was analyzed using SPSS 25.0, with the utilization of Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and Simple Regression Analysis to predict the perception of ColonClean.

Results:

The results showed that 75% achieved an "excellent" or "good" level of BP according to the Aronchick Bowel Preparation Scale (ABPS). Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the ColonClean mHealth app were positively correlated with users' attitudes and behaviors.

Conclusions:

ColonClean mHealth app serves as an educational reference and enhances the effectiveness of BP. Users expressed their willingness to use the app again in the future and recommend it to family and friends, highlighting its effectiveness as an educational guide for BP. Clinical Trial: The study was approved by Taipei Veterans General Hospital Institutional Review Board (No.2021-10-007AC)


 Citation

Please cite as:

Chen HY, Tu MH, Chen MY

Using a Mobile Health App (ColonClean) to Enhance the Effectiveness of Bowel Preparation: Development and Usability Study

JMIR Hum Factors 2025;12:e58479

DOI: 10.2196/58479

PMID: 39791869

PMCID: 11735013

The author of this paper has made a PDF available, but requires the user to login, or create an account.

© 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.