Value of Engagement in Digital Health Technology Research: Evidence Across 6 Unique Cohort Studies.

BACKGROUND: Wearable digital health technologies and mobile apps (personal digital health technologies [DHTs]) hold great promise for transforming health research and care. However, engagement in personal DHT research is poor. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to describe how participant engagement techniques and different study designs affect participant adherence, retention, and overall engagement in research involving personal DHTs. METHODS: Quantitative and qualitative analysis of engagement factors are reported across 6 unique personal DHT research studies that adopted aspects of a participant-centric design. Study populations included (1) frontline health care workers; (2) a conception, pregnant, and postpartum population; (3) individuals with Crohn disease; (4) individuals with pancreatic cancer; (5) individuals with central nervous system tumors; and (6) families with a Li-Fraumeni syndrome affected member. All included studies involved the use of a study smartphone app that collected both daily and intermittent passive and active tasks, as well as using multiple wearable devices including smartwatches, smart rings, and smart scales. All studies included a variety of participant-centric engagement strategies centered on working with participants as co-designers and regular check-in phone calls to provide support over study participation. Overall retention, probability of staying in the study, and median adherence to study activities are reported. RESULTS: The median proportion of participants retained in the study across the 6 studies was 77.2% (IQR 72.6%-88%). The probability of staying in the study stayed above 80% for all studies during the first month of study participation and stayed above 50% for the entire active study period across all studies. Median adherence to study activities varied by study population. Severely ill cancer populations and postpartum mothers showed the lowest adherence to personal DHT research tasks, largely the result of physical, mental, and situational barriers. Except for the cancer and postpartum populations, median adherences for the Oura smart ring, Garmin, and Apple smartwatches were over 80% and 90%, respectively. Median adherence to the scheduled check-in calls was high across all but one cohort (50%, IQR 20%-75%: low-engagement cohort). Median adherence to study-related activities in this low-engagement cohort was lower than in all other included studies. CONCLUSIONS: Participant-centric engagement strategies aid in participant retention and maintain good adherence in some populations. Primary barriers to engagement were participant burden (task fatigue and inconvenience), physical, mental, and situational barriers (unable to complete tasks), and low perceived benefit (lack of understanding of the value of personal DHTs). More population-specific tailoring of personal DHT designs is needed so that these new tools can be perceived as personally valuable to the end user.

Modificación del umbral convulsivo por etanol en un modelo experimental de epilepsia / Modification of the convulsive threshold by ethanol in an experimental model of epilepsy

En todo el mundo, más de 50 millones de personas sufren de epilepsia siendo muchas de ellas refractarias a las medidas estándar de tratamiento. Por esa razón, múltiples estudios se dirigen al descubrimiento de nuevas drogas antiepilépticas, especialmente entre aquellos compuestos con conocida actividad depresora del sistema nervioso central. Una de esas sustancias es el etanol, para la cual, sin embargo, se ha reportado tanto efecto proconvulsivante como anticonvulsivante. Para intentar solventar esa discrepancia, este estudio se diseñó para determinar el efecto del Etanol sobre el umbral convulsivo en un modelo de convulsiones inducidas por pentilenotetrazol. Se utilizaron ratones de la cepa NMRI (20-30 g), divididos en grupos y tratados como sigue: primero se administraba etanol 0,5 g/Kg (experimental) o solución fisiológica (control) y media hora después, pentilenotetrazol, hasta 50 mg/Kg. Todas las administraciones fueron intraperitoneales. Los análisis se realizaron por medio de curvas dosis-respuesta. Para el grupo control se encontró una dosis convulsivante 50 de 7,1 mg/Kg: el etanol aumentó significativamente el umbral convulsivo (dosis convulsivante 50= 57,4 mg/Kg de peso; p<0,001). Se concluye que la dosis probada, el etanol muestra un efecto anticonvulsivante significativo