A Novel Educational Control Group Mobile App for Meditation Interventions: Single-Group Feasibility Trial

Abstract

Background: Smartphone ownership is becoming ubiquitous among US adults, making the delivery of health interventions via a mobile app (ie, mobile health [mHealth]) attractive to many researchers and clinicians. Meditation interventions have become popular and have been delivered to study participants via mobile apps to improve a range of health outcomes in both healthy adults and those with chronic diseases. However, these meditation mHealth interventions have been limited by a lack of high-quality control groups. More specifically, these studies have lacked consistency in their use of active, time-matched, and attention-matched control groups.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to beta test a novel health education podcast control condition delivered via a smartphone app that would be a strong comparator to be used in future studies of app-based meditation interventions.

Methods: Patients with myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) cancer were recruited nationally. Upon enrollment, participants were informed to download the investigator-developed health education podcast app onto their mobile phone and listen to ~60 min/week of cancer-related educational podcasts for 12 weeks. The benchmarks for feasibility included ≥70% of participants completing ≥70% of the prescribed 60 min/week of podcasts, ≥70% of participants reporting that they were satisfied with the intervention, and ≥70% of participants reporting that they enjoyed the health education podcasts.

Results: A total of 96 patients with MPN were enrolled in the study; however, 19 never began the intervention. Of the 77 patients who participated in the intervention, 39 completed the entire study (ie, sustained participation through the follow-up period). Participation averaged 103.2 (SD 29.5) min/week. For 83.3% (10/12) of the weeks, at least 70% of participants completed at least 70% of their total prescribed use. Almost half of participants reported that they enjoyed the health education podcasts (19/39, 48.7%) and were satisfied with the intervention (17/39, 43.6%). There were no significant changes in cancer-related outcomes from baseline to postintervention.

Conclusions: A 12-week, health education podcast mobile app was demanded but not accepted in a sample of patients with cancer. Using the mobile app was not associated with significant changes in cancer-related symptoms. Based on findings from this study, a health education podcast mobile app may be a feasible option as a time- and attention-matched control group for efficacy trials with more extensive formative research for the content of the podcasts and its acceptability by the specific population.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03907774; https://ichgcp.net/clinical-trials-registry/NCT03907774.

Keywords: beta test; cancer; digital health; feasibility; mHealth; smartphone.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: JH and LL both report being members of the Scientific Advisory Board for Calm and serve in paid consulting roles. Neither earn additional financial compensation from the sale of the app. The remaining authors report no conflicts of interest.

©Jennifer Huberty, Ryan Eckert, Megan Puzia, Breanne Laird, Linda Larkey, Ruben Mesa. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (http://formative.jmir.org), 21.07.2020.

Figures

Figure 1

Mindful Health Lab (MHL) podcast app screenshot.

Figure 2

Study consort diagram. MPN: myeloproliferative neoplasm.

Figure 3

Participation and attrition by week during the intervention period.

Figure 4

Average minutes using podcast app by week.

Figure 5

Average podcast sessions completed by week.

Figure 6

Percent adherence to prescribed podcast app use by week.