August 3, 2018: A Digital Pragmatic Direct-to-Participant Clinical Trial for Identifying Underdiagnosed Atrial Fibrillation in a Large Health Plan Population (Steven Steinhubl, MD)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speaker

Steven R. Steinhubl, MD
Director of Digital Medicine, Scripps Research Translational Institute
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine, Scripps Research

Topic

A Digital Pragmatic Direct-to-Participant Clinical Trial for Identifying Underdiagnosed Atrial Fibrillation in a Large Health Plan Population

Keywords

Atrial fibrillation; Pragmatic clinical trials; Digital media; Participant engagement; Mobile health; mhealth; Wearable devices; mStops

Key Points

  • Up to 30% of individuals with atrial fibrillation are potentially asymptomatic and underdiagnosed.
  • The mHealth Screening To Prevent Strokes (mStops) study aims to determine if participant-generated data can improve the identification of atrial fibrillation relative to routine care.
  • Studies have shown that 88% of U.S. adults use the internet and 77% own a smartphone. With these data in mind, the study team designed a screening intervention for atrial fibrillation that enabled 100% digital interactions with all participants.
  • Study participants wore a self-applied electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring patch at home during routine activities for four weeks.

Discussion Themes

Participant engagement in pragmatic studies can be challenging. Through the mStops study, investigators learned more about how to best engage participants by reaching out in a digital manner so that participants felt less pressured to participate.

Participants in the study experienced very few technology-related difficulties.

Read more about mStops in a recent JAMA article.

 

Tags

@SteveSteinhubl, @ScrippsRTI, #atrialfibrillation, #clinicaltrial, #pctGR