JMIR mHealth and uHealth

Digital interventions offer scalable alternatives to traditional face-to-face diabetes education, but often face challenges related to inconsistent clinical effectiveness, and declining user engagement. However, whether a digital structured education program integrated with behavioral nudge tools can improve metabolic, behavioral, and psychological outcomes in adults with type 2 diabetes remains unclear.

Optimal bowel preparation (BP) is crucial for a successful colonoscopy. Although multiple factors influence BP quality, including patient adherence to laxatives and dietary instructions, the stool state during BP should be properly evaluated to perform a colonoscopy of sufficient quality. Therefore, we developed a smartphone app to evaluate a patient’s stool state during BP and a viewer to enable real-time monitoring by medical staff.

Pediatric ear, nose, and throat (ENT) surgery is common, but generates perioperative anxiety for caregivers and distress in children. Limited time for perioperative education and reliance on unverified online information can reduce family preparedness and increase stress. Few studies have evaluated co-designed mobile health (mHealth) apps to support and engage families in the perioperative ENT journey.

Behavior change support systems aim to shape, modify, or strengthen attitudes or behaviors without using coercion or deception. One of the main software features of persuasive system design is self-monitoring, which provides the means for users to continuously track their own performance or status, thereby facilitating goal attainment.

Consumer wearables are increasingly being integrated into health research for data collection. Although they are attractive to use, the accuracy of their photoplethysmography (PPG)-based measurements can be influenced by user characteristics such as sex, age, BMI, and skin tone. However, our knowledge regarding the validity of these measurements in certain populations, such as those with darker skin tones, seems limited. This is concerning as uncorrected differences in measurement accuracy can lead to health disparities when consumer wearable measurements are used more frequently. A potential cause for the gap in our knowledge regarding consumer wearable validity is the underrepresentation of certain population groups in studies validating PPG-based consumer wearables.

AI-powered digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are a promising approach to address barriers to traditional mental health care. However, real-world evidence of their immediate and sustained benefits remains limited.

Individuals with cardiometabolic disease typically average 10 to 14 hours of daily sedentary time, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular diseases remain a major global health burden, highlighting the need for long-term physiological monitoring. Photoplethysmography (PPG) is widely used in wearable devices for noninvasive monitoring of heart rate (HR), rhythm, and oxygen saturation in mobile health (mHealth) apps. However, the reliability of wearable reflectance PPG depends on sensing conditions, including sensor-skin contact force and pressure.

Young adults experience disproportionately high levels of stress, creating significant health challenges. This demographic often underuses traditional stress management methods due to perceived ineffectiveness, inconvenience, or stigma. Given these challenges, mobile virtual reality (VR) offers a novel, engaging, and accessible alternative stress management tool that may be more appealing to young adults.

Mindfulness interventions are considered an effective strategy for preventing mental health problems among health care workers (HCWs). While prior reviews have often included facilitator-guided or multicomponent interventions, it is unclear whether self-guided digital mindfulness interventions can also be effective without professional or in-person support.

Unintentional childhood injuries represent a major public health issue affecting the lives and health of children worldwide, with the risk and injury type dynamically changing with age and developmental stage. To effectively prevent unintentional injuries, intervention measures must be adjusted based on actual circumstances and kept up to date in real time. Mobile health (mHealth) technologies can meet this need, but their specific functions and intervention methods remain unclear at present.

The increasing prevalence of chronic illness presents a significant global health challenge due to growing end-of-life suffering. Palliative care is now an essential health service under Universal Health Coverage. Its integration into primary health care and use of mobile health (mHealth) have been recommended to improve access.