Background: Potential methods of application of self-administered Web-based pure-tone audiometry conducted at home on a PC with a sound card and ordinary headphones depend on the value of measurement error in such tests. Objective: The aim of this research was to determine the measurement error of the hearing threshold determined in the way described above and to identify and analyze factors influencing its value. Methods: The evaluation of the hearing threshold was made in three series: (1)...

Background: Stress is commonly experienced by many people and it is a contributing factor to many mental and physical health conditions, However, few efforts have been made to develop and test the effects of interventions for stress. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of a Web-based stress-reduction intervention on stress, investigate mindfulness and procrastination as potential mediators of any treatment effects, and test whether the intervention is equally effective...

Background: There is no functional pharmacovigilance system in Cambodia to our knowledge. Mobile phone–based tools, such as short message service (SMS) text messages, are increasingly used for surveillance purposes. Objective: To pilot-test the FrontlineSMS mobile phone–based tool for notification of adverse events, using Cambodia’s only International Vaccination Center at the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge as a field site. Methods: People receiving vaccinations, aged over 18...

Background: Mobile phone–based assessment may represent a cost-effective and clinically effective method of monitoring psychotic symptoms in real-time. There are several software options, including the use of native smartphone applications and text messages (short message service, SMS). Little is known about the strengths and limitations of these two approaches in monitoring symptoms in individuals with serious mental illness. Objective: The objective of this study was to compare two...

Background: There is growing interest in the use of information communication technologies to treat obesity. An intervention delivered by smartphone could be a convenient, potentially cost-effective, and wide-reaching weight management strategy. Although there have been studies of texting-based interventions and smartphone applications (apps) used as adjuncts to other treatments, there are currently no randomized controlled trials (RCT) of a stand-alone smartphone application for weight loss...

Background: There is increasing interest from academics and clinicians in harnessing smartphone applications (apps) as a means of delivering behavioral interventions for health. Despite the growing availability of a range of health-related apps on the market, academic research on the development and evaluation of such apps is in the relatively early stages. A few existing studies have explored the views of various populations on using mobile phones for health-related issues and some studies...

Background: Mobile phone–based interventions present a means of providing high quality health care to hard-to-reach underserved populations. Migrant farm workers (MFWs) are among the most underserved populations in the United States due to a high prevalence of chronic diseases yet limited access to health care. However, it is unknown if MFWs have access to mobile phone devices used in mobile health (mHealth) interventions, or if they are willing to use such technologies. Objective:...

Background: Many studies rely on self-reported anthropometric data. While paper-based self-reports have been the standard collection mode, the number of studies collecting self-reported data via the Web is increasing rapidly. Although numerous studies have shown good agreement between self-reported and measured weight using paper-based questionnaires, the validity of using the Web to inquire about weight is unknown. Objective: The objective of this study was to validate Web-based self-reports...

Background: A high-quality gold standard is vital for supervised, machine learning-based, clinical natural language processing (NLP) systems. In clinical NLP projects, expert annotators traditionally create the gold standard. However, traditional annotation is expensive and time-consuming. To reduce the cost of annotation, general NLP projects have turned to crowdsourcing based on Web 2.0 technology, which involves submitting smaller subtasks to a coordinated marketplace of workers on the...

Background: There is currently a lack of information about the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals from primary research. Objective: To review the current published literature to identify the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals, and identify current gaps in the literature to provide recommendations...

Background: The network structure of an organization influences how well or poorly an organization communicates and manages its resources. In the Millennium Villages Project site in Bonsaaso, Ghana, a mobile phone closed user group has been introduced for use by the Bonsaaso Millennium Villages Project Health Team and other key individuals. No assessment on the benefits or barriers of the use of the closed user group had been carried out. Objective: The purpose of this research was to make...

Background: Despite significant consumer interest and anticipated benefits, overall adoption of personal health records (PHRs) remains relatively low. Understanding the consumer perspective is necessary, but insufficient by itself. Consumer PHR use also has broad implications for health care professionals and organizational delivery systems; however, these have received less attention. An exclusive focus on the PHR as a tool for consumer empowerment does not adequately take into account the...

Background: The Health Quality Measures Format (HQMF) is a Health Level 7 (HL7) standard for expressing computable Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs). Creating tools to process HQMF queries in clinical databases will become increasingly important as the United States moves forward with its Health Information Technology Strategic Plan to Stages 2 and 3 of the Meaningful Use incentive program (MU2 and MU3). Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2) is one of the analytical...

Background: The integrity of behavioral intervention trials depends on consistent intervention delivery, and uniform, comprehensive process data collection. It can be challenging in practice due to complex human interactions involved. Objective: We sought to design a system to support the fidelity of intervention delivery and efficient capture of qualitative and quantitative process data for a telephone-delivered behavioral counseling intervention to increase physical activity and function...

Background: Telehealth based on advanced information technology is an emerging health care strategy for managing chronic diseases. However, the cost-effectiveness and clinical effect of synchronous telehealth services in older patients with cardiovascular diseases has not yet been studied. Since 2009, the Telehealth Center at the National Taiwan University Hospital has provided a range of telehealth services (led by a cardiologist and staffed by cardiovascular nursing specialists) for...

Background: Adderall is the most commonly abused prescription stimulant among college students. Social media provides a real-time avenue for monitoring public health, specifically for this population. Objective: This study explores discussion of Adderall on Twitter to identify variations in volume around college exam periods, differences across sets of colleges and universities, and commonly mentioned side effects and co-ingested substances. Methods: Public-facing Twitter status messages...

Background: Effective health communication is important for informed decision-making, yet little is known about the range of information sources used by persons with multiple sclerosis (MS), the perceived trust in those information sources, or how this might vary according to patient characteristics. Objective: We aimed to investigate the sources of health information used by persons with MS, their preferences for the source of health information, and levels of trust in those information...

Background: Past research has revealed that insufficient pain assessment could, and often, has negative implications on the provision of quality health care. While current available clinical approaches have proven to be valid interventions, they are expensive and can often fail in providing efficient pain measurements. The increase in the prevalence of pain calls for more intuitive pain assessment solutions. Computerized alternatives have already been proposed both in the literature and in...

Background: Zoonotic viruses are infectious organisms transmittable between animals and humans. Agencies of public health, agriculture, and wildlife conduct surveillance of zoonotic viruses and often report data on their websites. However, the format and characteristics of these data are not known. Objective: To describe and compare the format and characteristics of statistics of zoonotic viruses on state public health, agriculture, and wildlife agency websites. Methods: For each state, we...

Background: The health effects caused by electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use are not well understood. Objective: Our purpose was to document the positive and negative short-term health effects produced by e-cigarette use through an analysis of original posts from three online e-cigarettes forums. Methods: Data were collected into Microsoft Access databases and analyzed using Cytoscape association graphics, frequency distributions, and interactomes to determine the number and type of health...

Background: Mobile Health (mHealth) proposes health care delivering anytime and anywhere. It aims to answer several emerging problems in health services, including the increasing number of chronic diseases, high costs on national health services, and the need to provide direct access to health services, regardless of time and place. mHealth systems include the use of mobile devices and apps that interact with patients and caretakers. However, mobile devices present several constraints, such...

Background: eHealth is an application of information and communication technologies across the whole range of functions that affect health. The benefits of eHealth (eg, improvement of health care operational efficiency and quality of patient care) have previously been documented in the literature. Health care providers (eg, medical doctors) are the key driving force in pushing eHealth initiatives. Without their acceptance and actual use, those eHealth benefits would be unlikely to be reaped....

Background: Undesirable loss of weight is a major challenge in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, little is known about loss of appetite in ALS patients. Objective: We investigated loss of appetite in ALS patients by means of an online self-assessment and whether ALS-related symptoms were associated with it. Methods: Loss of appetite in 51 ALS patients was assessed using the Council on Nutrition Appetite Questionnaire (CNAQ). Loss of appetite is defined as a CNAQ-score of 28 or...

Background: The Web provides widespread access to vast quantities of health-related information that can improve quality-of-life through better understanding of personal symptoms, medical conditions, and available treatments. Unfortunately, identifying a credible and personally relevant subset of information can be a time-consuming and challenging task for users without a medical background. Objective: The objective of the Personal Health Lens system is to aid users when reading...

Background: Several modifiable health and lifestyle factors are consistently associated with dementia risk and it is estimated that significantly fewer people would develop dementia if the incidence of risk factors could be reduced. Despite this, Australians’ awareness of the health and lifestyle factors associated with dementia risk is low. Within a national community education campaign, Alzheimer’s Australia developed a dementia risk reduction website providing information...

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) technologies provide many potential benefits to the delivery of health care. Medical decision support tools have shown particular promise in improving quality of care and provider workflow. Frontline health workers such as Community Health Workers (CHWs) have been shown to be effective in extending the reach of care, yet only a few medicine dosing tools are available to them. Objective: We developed an mHealth medicine dosing tool tailored to the skill...

Background: Individual and group-based behavioral weight loss treatment (BWL) produces average weight loss of 5-10% of initial body weight, which improves health and wellbeing. However, BWL is an intensive treatment that is costly and not widely available. Smartphones may be a useful tool for promoting adherence to key aspects of BWL, such as self-monitoring, thereby facilitating weight loss while reducing the need for intensive in-person contact. Objective: The objective of this study was...

Background: Communication between patients and medical staff can be challenging if both parties have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Specialized applications can potentially alleviate these problems and significantly contribute to an effective, improved care process when foreign language patients are involved. Objective: The objective for this paper was to discuss the experiences gained from a study carried out at the Hannover Medical School regarding the use of a mobile...