Translating the Burden of Pollen Allergy Into Numbers Using Electronically Generated Symptom Data From the Patient's Hayfever Diary in Austria and Germany: 10-Year Observational Study.
J Med Internet Res
; 22(2): e16767, 2020 02 21.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32130130
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Pollen allergies affect a significant proportion of the population globally. At present, Web-based tools such as pollen diaries and mobile apps allow for easy and fast documentation of allergic symptoms via the internet.OBJECTIVE:
This study aimed to characterize the users of the Patient's Hayfever Diary (PHD), a Web-based platform and mobile app, to apply different symptom score calculations for comparison, and to evaluate the contribution of organs and medications to the total score for the first time.METHODS:
The PHD users were filtered with regard to their location in Austria and Germany, significant positive correlation to the respective pollen type (birch/grass), and at least 15 entries in the respective season. Furthermore, 4 different symptom score calculation methods were applied to the datasets from 2009 until 2018, of which 2 were raw symptom scores and 2 were symptom load index (normalized) calculations. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated pairwise for these 4 symptom score calculations.RESULTS:
Users were mostly male and belonged to the age groups of 21 to 40 years or >40 years. User numbers have increased in the last 5 years, especially when mobile apps were made available. The Pearson correlation coefficients showed a significant linear relationship above 0.9 among the 4 symptom score datasets and thus indicated no significant difference between the different methods of symptom score calculation. The nose contributed the most to the symptom score and determined about 40% of the score.CONCLUSIONS:
The exact method of calculation of the symptom score is not critical. All computation methods show the same behavior (increase/decrease during the season). Therefore, the symptom load index is a useful computation method in all fields exploring pollen allergy, and Web-based diaries are a globally applicable tool to monitor the effect of pollen on human health via electronically generated symptom data.Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Polen
/
Rinitis Alérgica Estacional
Tipo de estudio:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Observational_studies
País/Región como asunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Med Internet Res
Asunto de la revista:
INFORMATICA MEDICA
Año:
2020
Tipo del documento:
Article