JMIR Research Protocols

People with traumatic brain injury (TBI) morbidity (impaired cognition and behavioral regulation) and polytrauma comorbidity (depression, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], chronic pain, and sleep disorders) experience health care inequities. Among Veterans and Service Members (V/SMs), TBI morbidity or polytrauma comorbidity may impact access and meaningful engagement in the high-quality health care needed to reduce poor health care outcomes. The National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Report on Accelerating Progress in TBI highlights a dearth of implementation science research in TBI that may help overcome health care access challenges. Implementation science uses a mixed methods approach to understand, implement, and examine outcomes associated with using evidence-based care in practice.

University education for physicians and midwives in sexual and reproductive health (SRH), particularly regarding abortion, is shaped by broader societal debates, which are often polarized. Teaching at faith-based universities might limit the scope and quality of SRH education. The study is contextualized within Chile’s shifting legal and social landscape following the landmark 2017 reform under President Michelle Bachelet. This reform partially lifted Chile’s absolute ban on abortion, permitting it under 3 circumstances: risk to the mother’s life, fatal fetal anomaly, and a pregnancy resulting from rape. The protocol presented here intends to examine how the enacted legislation plays out in the curricula and how abortion is taught in secular and faith-based universities, which often take conflicting stances on abortion.

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD), affecting approximately 20% to 30% of individuals with major depressive disorder, is associated with significant disability, reduced quality of life, and an increased risk of hospitalization and suicide. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a noninvasive neuromodulation therapy, has demonstrated strong efficacy for TRD but is typically limited to research contexts or private clinics. Existing research on patient perspectives on rTMS is limited and largely retrospective, focusing on individuals who have already undergone treatment. As a result, little is known about the factors that influence patients’ decisions to accept or decline rTMS at the time of referral, particularly within real-world clinical settings.

The accurate measurement of physical behaviors (PBs) and eating behaviors (EBs) is critical for designing, monitoring, and implementing public health guidelines and intervention strategies. The objective of the Wearable Sensor Assessment of Physical and Eating Behaviours (WEALTH) project was to develop standardized methods to identify daily PBs and EBs from wearable research- and consumer-grade sensors and evaluate the interaction and contexts of these behaviors.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and mental health conditions represent intersecting public health challenges, especially in resource-limited rural China. Existing care models often neglect the psychosocial needs of populations at high risk for COPD, resulting in limited effectiveness of prevention and management strategies. This study evaluates an integrated intervention designed to improve both mental and physical health outcomes among high-COPD-risk individuals with mental health symptoms, using a population medicine framework.

Areca nut (AN) is a commonly consumed psychoactive substance, especially in South and Southeast Asia. Chronic chewing of AN has been linked to multiple health problems, including temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders. Excessive strain on TMJ during chronic AN chewing can lead to repetitive injury, resulting in microtrauma and macrotrauma to both the TMJ and the surrounding masticatory structures. Previous studies have reported the long-term impact of AN chewing on TMJ by using conventional 2D imaging.

Intermittent fasting interventions, such as time-restricted eating (TRE) without calorie restriction, may offer diverse cardiometabolic health benefits, including reductions in inflammation. However, the underlying metabolic mechanisms are poorly understood.

Dementia is a global public health concern, with prevalence projected to reach 78 million individuals by 2030 and 139 million by 2050. Most persons living with dementia reside in community settings and are supported by family caregivers. As caregiving demands grow, caregivers experience significant psychosocial, emotional, and financial burden, including high rates of stress, social isolation, and depressive symptoms. Access to effective support services remains limited, highlighting the urgent need for innovative and accessible caregiver interventions.

Prognostic inequity has been identified as a barrier to accessing end-of-life care for underrepresented groups. Artificial intelligence–based clinical prediction models (AIPMs) for prognostication of mortality have the potential to offer rapid, accessible, and accurate predictions that could streamline care. However, they may also exacerbate preexisting inequities in the health care system rather than address accessibility and quality. This can be caused by erroneous outputs from biased training data, outcomes from out-of-scope operationalization, and inexplicability due to opacity.

Problematic digital media use (PDMU) among young people has been on the rise. PDMU is defined as excessive use of digital media, the internet, or electronic communication leading to user dysfunction and harm to other individuals. Evidence links excessive use of media with various mental health disorders, behavioral problems, substance abuse, poor sleep hygiene, and social dysfunction. This maladaptive behavior is pervasive among young people, yet there is a paucity of studies that comprehensively examine the phenomenon in this specific population.

A comprehensive understanding of organizations is fundamental for implementing successful change measures. However, to date, there is no empirically testable, operationalized systems-psychodynamic organizational diagnostic method that can capture the deeper, more complex dynamics that are crucial for sustainable transformation. To address this gap, we developed the Systematic Multidimensional Organizational Assessment (SyMOA), a qualitative instrument based on an evidence-based clinical diagnostic framework, the Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics III. SyMOA integrates clinical, organizational, and systemic psychodynamic theory and analyzes an organization’s challenges based on invisible and unconscious aspects, that is, those lurking beneath the surface. It hypothesizes 3 organizational dimensions: (1) current challenges based on the sociotechnical integration and organizational internal functioning level, (2) internal relationship dynamics, and (3) unconscious organizational conflicts. The SyMOA dimensions are operationalized into a semistructured interview guide and coding protocols for the analysis of the content. By capturing the underlying dynamics, SyMOA aims to provide a deeper understanding of an organization’s challenges and establish a solid foundation for targeted interventions.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is characterized by kidney deficiency, phlegm, and blood stasis as core findings, specifically in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and the kidney-tonifying, phlegm-resolving, and blood stasis–removing (KPR) method is a fundamental therapeutic approach for MM in TCM. Western medicine primarily focuses on targeted immunotherapy or chemotherapy for MM treatment, whereas TCM characterizes MM through distinct pathological patterns that directly correspond to immune microenvironment dysregulation. Emerging evidence implicates the PHD finger protein 19 (PHF19)/enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2)/trimethylated histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3) epigenetic axis in immune microenvironment dysregulation and MM progression. Notably, TCM “blood stasis” correlates with hypoxia-induced immune gene silencing in MM bone marrow, and KPR (a clinically validated TCM decoction with 16 herbs) acts on this axis via its active components that regulate EZH2 and epigenetic function, merging TCM syndrome differentiation with modern epigenetics. We have designed a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to investigate the mechanism of action and safety of the KPR method in MM.