Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jan 29, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 30, 2018 - Aug 16, 2018
Date Accepted: Oct 12, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Pilot clinical trial for the development of a mobile application designed for the empowerment of elderly HIV-infected patients
ABSTRACT
Background:
The elderly HIV patient population not only presents more comorbidity and poly-medication, but also suffers from stigmatization on behalf of society and lack of social support, where new technologies can now play a role towards enhancing the empowerment of these patients.
Objective:
To encourage a greater knowledge about the infection, promote patient treatment adherence and offer them the possibility of anonymously establishing contact between them and their peers.
Methods:
A series of clinical and psychosocial parameters were studied in 30 HIV-infected patients of over 60 years of age. 15 of them were randomized to use an app and 15 were the control group. All tests were repeated after 6 months.
Results:
The median age of patients was 66,5 years old, with an 11-year period suffering from HIV infection. 29 of them had an undetectable viral load and CD4 nadir was 194 cel/micromole. Median number of comorbidity diseases was 2. 11 of them lived with their parents and 19 lived alone. They spent an average of 5 hours a day sitting down and 56,7% of them referred high physical activity. They scored 4 out of 5 for general quality of life perception. 80% presented high adherence to their treatment and average number of concomitant medication was 5. In the 6-minute walking test (6MWT) they covered a distance of 400 meters and 3 of them desaturated during the test. The 15 patients made frequent use of the app with 2407 sessions and an average of 7 minutes and 56 seconds time of use with a total of 13143 screen views. During the 6 months of the trial, 3 non-AIDS events took place. There were no significant modifications to BMI, blood pressure measurements, lipid profile or panel or immuno-virology information data. Neither was there any significant modification in the distance covered in the 6MWT or of the desaturation percentage. There wasn´t any differences in the questionnaire scores for perception of quality of life either, or for confessed physical activity or ART and non-ART treatment adherence.
Conclusions:
Significant differences between studied parameters were not objectified in these patients, although this trial has a small sample size and only a brief follow-up period is considered. However, patients did make a frequent use of the app, making this a possible method of intervention to be proposed in future subsequent studies
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
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