OBJECTIVE: This study aims to contrast the viewpoints of 2 groups of people with chronic pain concerning mHealth: people who have adopted the use of mHealth and those who have not. We highlight the benefits of mHealth solutions for people with chronic pain and the perceived obstacles to their increased adoption. We also provide recommendations to encourage people to try mHealth solutions as part of their self-care.
METHODS: The Prolific crowdsourcing platform was used to collect crowdsourced data. A prescreening questionnaire was released to determine what type of pain potential participants have and whether they are currently using mHealth solutions for chronic pain. The participants were invited based on their experience using mHealth to manage their pain. Similar questions were presented to mHealth users and nonusers. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed to determine the outcomes of this study.
RESULTS: In total, 31 responses were collected from people (aged 19-63 years, mean 31.4, SD 12.1) with chronic pain who use mHealth solutions. Two-thirds (n=20, 65%) of the users identified as female and 11 (35%) as male. We matched these mHealth users with an equal number of nonusers: 31 responses from the pool of 361 participants in the prescreening questionnaire. The nonusers\' ages ranged from 18 to 58 years (mean 30.8, SD 11.09), with 15 (50%) identifying as female and 15 (50%) as male. Likert-scale questions were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon (MWW) test. Results showed that the 2 groups differed significantly on 10 (43%) of 23 questions and shared similar views in the remaining 13 (57%). The most significant differences were related to privacy and interactions with health professionals. Of the 31 mHealth users, 12 (39%) declared that using mHealth solutions has made interacting with health or social care professionals easier (vs n=22, 71%, of nonusers). The majority of the nonusers (n=26, 84%) compared with about half of the users (n=15, 48%) expressed concern about sharing their data with, for example, third parties.
CONCLUSIONS: This study investigated how mHealth is currently used in the context of chronic pain and what expectations mHealth nonusers have for mHealth as a future chronic pain management tool. Analysis revealed contrasts between mHealth use expectations and actual usage experiences, highlighting privacy concerns toward mHealth solutions. Generally, the results showed that nonusers are more concerned about data privacy and expect mHealth to facilitate interacting with health professionals. The users, in contrast, feel that such connections do not exist.
目的:本研究旨在对比两组慢性疼痛患者关于mHealth的观点:已经使用mHealth的人和没有使用mHealth的人。我们强调了mHealth解决方案对慢性疼痛患者的好处,以及增加采用mHealth解决方案的障碍。我们还提供建议,鼓励人们尝试mHealth解决方案,作为他们自我保健的一部分。
方法:使用Prolific众包平台收集众包数据。发布了一份预筛选问卷,以确定参与者患有哪种类型的潜在疼痛,以及他们目前是否正在使用mHealth解决方案治疗慢性疼痛。根据他们使用mHealth管理疼痛的经验邀请参与者。向mHealth用户和非用户提出了类似的问题。进行了定性和定量分析以确定本研究的结果。
结果:总计,从人群(19-63岁,平均31.4,SD12.1)患有使用mHealth解决方案的慢性疼痛。三分之二(n=20,65%)的用户确定为女性,11(35%)为男性。我们将这些mHealth用户与相同数量的非用户进行了匹配:在预筛选问卷中,来自361名参与者的31个回答。非使用者年龄从18岁到58岁不等(平均30.8,标准差11.09),15(50%)为女性,15(50%)为男性。使用Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon(MWW)测试分析了李克特量表的问题。结果显示,两组在23个问题中的10个(43%)上存在显着差异,其余13个(57%)具有相似的观点。最显着的差异与隐私和与卫生专业人员的互动有关。在31个mHealth用户中,12(39%)宣称使用mHealth解决方案使与健康或社会护理专业人员的互动变得更加容易(而n=22,71%,非用户)。大多数非用户(n=26,84%),而大约一半的用户(n=15,48%)表示担心与他们共享数据,例如,第三方。
结论:本研究调查了目前在慢性疼痛背景下如何使用mHealth,以及mHealth非使用者对mHealth作为未来慢性疼痛管理工具的期望。分析揭示了mHealth使用预期和实际使用体验之间的对比,强调对mHealth解决方案的隐私担忧。一般来说,结果显示,非用户更关注数据隐私,并期望mHealth促进与卫生专业人员的互动。用户,相比之下,觉得这种联系不存在。