Abstract
Objectives: The Health & Her app provides menopausal women with a means of monitoring their symptoms, symptom triggers, and menstrual periods, and enables them to engage in a variety of digital activities designed to promote wellbeing. The aim of this study was to examine whether sustained weekly engagement with the app is associated with improvements in menopausal symptoms.
Design: A pre-post longitudinal cohort study.
Setting: Analysed data collected from Health & Her app users.
Participants: 1,900 women who provided symptom data via the app across a 2-month period.
Primary and Secondary outcome measures: Symptom changes from baseline to 2 months was the outcome measure. A linear mixed effects model explored whether levels of weekly app engagement influenced symptom changes. Secondary analyses explored whether app-usage factors such as total number of days spent logging symptoms, reporting triggers, reporting menstrual periods, and using in-app activities were independently predictive of symptom changes from baseline. Covariates included HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) use, hormonal contraceptive use, present comorbidities, age, and dietary supplement use.
Results: Findings demonstrated that greater engagement with the Health & Her app for 2-months was associated with greater reductions in symptoms over time. Daily use of in-app activities and logging symptoms and menstrual periods were each independently associated with symptom reductions.
Conclusions: This study demonstrated that greater weekly engagement with the app was associated with greater reductions in symptoms. It is recommended that women be made aware of menopause-specific apps, such as that provided by Health & Her, to support them to manage their symptoms.
Design: A pre-post longitudinal cohort study.
Setting: Analysed data collected from Health & Her app users.
Participants: 1,900 women who provided symptom data via the app across a 2-month period.
Primary and Secondary outcome measures: Symptom changes from baseline to 2 months was the outcome measure. A linear mixed effects model explored whether levels of weekly app engagement influenced symptom changes. Secondary analyses explored whether app-usage factors such as total number of days spent logging symptoms, reporting triggers, reporting menstrual periods, and using in-app activities were independently predictive of symptom changes from baseline. Covariates included HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) use, hormonal contraceptive use, present comorbidities, age, and dietary supplement use.
Results: Findings demonstrated that greater engagement with the Health & Her app for 2-months was associated with greater reductions in symptoms over time. Daily use of in-app activities and logging symptoms and menstrual periods were each independently associated with symptom reductions.
Conclusions: This study demonstrated that greater weekly engagement with the app was associated with greater reductions in symptoms. It is recommended that women be made aware of menopause-specific apps, such as that provided by Health & Her, to support them to manage their symptoms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e077185 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | BMJ Open |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 30 Dec 2023 |
Keywords
- menopause
- m-health
- women's health
- menopausal symptoms
- Symptom monitoring
- Menstrual tracking