JMIR Research Protocols

Tobacco smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease among women. Quitting smoking offers numerous health benefits; however, women tend to have less success than men when attempting to quit. This discrepancy is partly due to sex- and gender-related factors, including the lower effectiveness of smoking cessation medication and the presence of unique motives for smoking and barriers to quitting among women. Despite the gendered nature of smoking, most smoking cessation apps are gender-neutral and fail to address women’s specific needs.

Mental disorders are complex diseases that affect 28% (about 17.8 million people) of the adult population in Germany annually. Since 2020, certain mobile health (mHealth) apps, so-called digital health applications (DiGA), are reimbursable in the German statutory health insurance system. A total of 27 of the 56 currently available DiGA are approved for the treatment of mental and behavioral diseases. An indicator of existing problems hindering the use of DiGA is the rather hesitant prescribing behavior.

Nontraumatic painful upper-extremity conditions (NPUCs) are largely age-related degenerations that affect the majority of adults. Most patients with NPUCs do not seek medical care and adjust on their own. Among those who do seek care, approximately 20% report risky substance use, defined as a consumption pattern that increases the risk of harm to physical or psychosocial health. In the context of NPUC, risky substance use is associated with more intense pain, emotional distress, disability, and opioid or other substance misuse (ie, cross-tolerance). Consequently, risky substance use is a significant modifiable risk factor for the progression and maintenance of chronic pain-related disability and comorbid psychopathology among patients with NPUCs.

A significant proportion of individuals with disabilities in resource-limited countries require at least 1 assistive technology (AT) device to enhance their functioning and autonomy. However, there is limited evidence regarding the actual needs of AT users in these regions concerning the adequacy of ATs.

Retaining specialist physicians in rural parts of India poses a fundamental challenge, which affects the health care system’s functionality and provision of standard health care services. There has been an acute shortfall of specialist physicians in the fields of medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and surgery at rural community health centers. This necessitates urgent policy focus to address the shortages and design effective rural retention strategies. In this study, which uses a discrete choice experiment (DCE), individuals choose from multiple-choice preferences that resemble hypothetical job descriptions.

Domestic violence is one of the most significant global public health priorities. This social problem could be accelerated by global catastrophes such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The structural changes due to the imposition of health measures, combined with personal and social problems, may worsen the situation.

Interprofessional education (IPE) is an approach that can improve health care quality, contribute to the qualification of health care professionals, and train undergraduate students. Although this strategy has made significant progress in the last decade, integration, sustainability, and institutional growth are still priorities worldwide. Thus, maintaining strategies is essential for their full development and evolution.

Almost 40% of persons living with dementia make an emergency department (ED) visit each year. One of the most impactful and costly elements of their ED care is the decision to discharge or admit them to the hospital—the “disposition” decision. When more than one reasonable option exists regarding a health care decision, such as the decision to admit or not, it often requires a complex conversation between patients, care partners, and ED providers, ideally involving shared decision-making. However, little is known about how these conversations are conducted and the real-world context in which they take place. Best practices in ED communication and shared decision-making for persons living with dementia and their care partners are limited.

In learning health systems (LHSs), real-time evidence, informatics, patient-provider partnerships and experiences, and organizational culture are combined to conduct “learning cycles” that support improvements in care. Although the concept of LHSs is fairly well established in the literature, evaluation methods, mechanisms, and indicators are less consistently described. Furthermore, LHSs often use “usual care” or “status quo” as a benchmark for comparing new approaches to care, but disentangling usual care from multifarious care modalities found across settings is challenging. There is a need to identify which evaluation methods are used within LHSs, describe how LHS growth and maturity are conceptualized, and determine what tools and measures are being used to evaluate LHSs at the system level.

Despite global goals to improve maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes, mortality and morbidity continue to be a concern, particularly during the postnatal period in low- and middle-income countries. While mothers have the responsibility of providing ongoing care for newborns at home, they often receive insufficient newborn care education in Tanzania. Mobile health via text messaging is an ever-growing approach that may address this gap and provide timely education.

Resilience can protect individuals from the negative impact of adversity, facilitating a swift recovery. The exploration of protective factors contributing to resilience has been a central focus of research. Self-compassion, a positive psychological construct that involves treating oneself with kindness, holds the potential to bolster resilience. Although several studies have indicated an association between self-compassion and resilience, there is a lack of systematic reviews and meta-analyses examining this relationship and the potential moderators and mechanisms.

Children with an intellectual disability (ID) are 3-4 times more likely to present with behaviors that challenge and mental health problems than typically developing children. Parenting and the quality of parent-child relationships are risk factors for these families. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated difficulties, leading to an increase in child mental health problems and behaviors that challenge, a deterioration in parental mental health, and further strain on family relationships. Remote family interventions could be an effective solution for both families and specialist mental health services. Video interaction guidance (VIG) has shown promise for improving child mental health. However, it is unclear whether it is widely acceptable to families and feasible to implement across specialist child mental health services.